


Covalence

by Captain_Loki



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, First Time, John Sheppard in SG-1, M/M, Pining, Psychic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:20:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Loki/pseuds/Captain_Loki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“As far as I can tell the device was used for…” Daniel smirks slightly, John’s definitely more than a little apprehensive about what the Doctor discovered, “couples counseling.” When and Ancient device bonds John and Cam together physically, it’s their emotional well-being put on the line</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Disequilibrium

**Author's Note:**

> First time, bit of angst; this takes place in a sort of AU where John never joined the Atlantis Expedition but became a member of SG-1 instead; timeline wise this takes place sometime after the defeat of the Ori

John’s been with the SGC long enough now that ‘strange and unexpected’ are pretty much par for the course. But the jet of golden light shooting out from the middle of a pale green gem imbedded in smooth gray stone still surprises him.

The ray looks almost solid, like an Asgard weapon beam only more...ethereal. It moves like the tendrils of an ascended being, John marvels, as it slowly weaves its way through the air towards him. He drops the stone back into the cardboard box with the rest of the un-catalogued Ancient tech SG-11 found on P3X-452.

Cam is staring up at the light apprehensively, a large fist closing in John’s t-shirt like John needs to be convinced to step back away from the—whatever it is.

“Jackson…what do we do?” Cam whispers, like if his voice is too loud it will spook the light. Daniel stutters on the other side of the office.

“How the hell should I know?” John cocks his head like a curious puppy. The light stops suddenly, poised in front of John’s chest and John thinks for a minute that it’s just going to remain frozen there.

Instead it shoots forward, lightening quick and John barely has the time to gasp, a sharp inhalation of breath as the light pierces through his chest. He clutches at his t-shirt, and collapses to the ground, turning in time to see the light shoot through Cam’s back, out the front and bursting into a thousand tiny particles, skittering across the floor, walls, and ceiling like embers from a cackling campfire.

“Jackson!” Cam gasps, collapsing onto his knees beside John, clutching at his own chest. John’s breathing heavily, a shiver ratcheting up his spine. He feels a little like the time he jumped into the Atlantic Ocean midwinter on a dare. It’s a stuttering, paralyzing kind of cold; he thought it would be warm.

“What the…fuck….was that?” Cam shouts, and John manages a huff of laughter at the hesitation in Cam’s voice, the almost whispered curse, like he half expects his ‘granma’ to pop out from behind Jackson’s desk and smack him upside the head.

“I have no idea,” Jackson intones, the ‘probably nothing good,’ left unsaid. Cam pulls himself to his feet, hauling John up beside him. Cam’s hands land heavily on the side of John’s face, checking him over.

“Get off me Mitchell,” John gripes, pushing his team leader away with an upward curl of his lips.

“Are you alright?” Cam asks. John looks down at himself.

“I’m still breathing,” John drawls, “are you alright?”

“Looks like it, thing didn’t splice me in half,” Cam says, checking.

“This is why we can’t take you anywhere,” Daniel reprimands.

“I thought this was Ancient tech,” John says defensively, peering over the edge of the cardboard box with more than a little trepidation.

“It is,” Daniel says his voice thoughtful; he’s staring hard at John when John looks over.

“Well I thought this stuff had to be activated before it could…you know…shoot icy jets of glowy death at people!” John scowls.

“It does—”

“You can speak like every language known and not known to man, can you give me a little more than two syllables here,” John asks. Cam throws a hand up in front of him.

“Hey Major,” he says warningly. John closes his mouth, but Cam too is looking slightly miffed about the whole situation, staring at Daniel expectantly.

“No one with the Ancient gene has touched this,” Daniel says.

“Then what the hell?” John asks.

“Apparently you have the Ancient gene John, congratulations.” Daniel says, looking anything other than congratulatory. Cam is staring at John.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Cam says. “How? Wasn’t there some kind of mandatory ATA gene testing day or something?”

“Yes,” Daniel says. They both look at John.

“I was busy that day?”

“You know I really think we should move this conversation to a more suitable location, let’s say…oh I don’t know…the infirmary?” Daniel suggests and Cam nods in agreement.

“I hate the infirmary,” John gripes, but he allows Cam to pull him out the door anyway.

 

****

“Physically you’re in perfect health.” Doctor Lam says, clipboard in hand, staring down at John and Cam lying in adjacent beds.

“Goo—“ John stops suddenly, “physically?” Doctor Lam quirks a grin.

“Scans show nothing out of the ordinary, blood work came back clean, your DNA hasn’t been manipulated that we can see…” Doctor Lam trails off, peering down at her two patients curiously.

“What is it?” John asks, knowing that look. It’s sympathetic and curious, analytical.

“If Doctor Jackson hadn’t explained what happened I would say this was a routine check-up…except—“she sighs.

“What?” Cam asks. She sets the clipboard down on the tray between the two beds and gently grasps Cam’s right hand and John’s left. They stare at her, both sets of brows drawn together in confusion. John opens his mouth to question when she flips their hands over, palms face up.

“These.” Doctor Lam explains.

“What the—“ John says, sitting up straighter, staring down at the pale skin of his wrist.

“That wasn’t there this morning,” Cam says, staring at his own. Doctor Lam shakes her head.

“No.”

“That Earth’s point of origin?” John asks, staring at the small symbol tattooed in the center of his wrist.

“Yup,” Daniel remarks stepping up to the side of Cam’s bed.

“What the hell does that mean?” Cam asks, staring at Daniel.

“I don’t know,” Daniel says matter of fact. John stares. “Yet,” Daniel amends.

“Well please do,” Cam says, a little stricken. “Can’t walk around with a matching tattoo…” Cam shoots John a look John supposes he’s supposed to return. Instead he looks away, pulls his hand from Lam’s loose grip and fingers the smooth skin of his wrist.

 

***

“Man, this sucks, don’t it?” Cam drawls, shooting John a commiserating look. John shrugs and pulls a clean shirt over his head, balling up the jacket of his uniform. Cam slams his own locker shut and collapses on the bench between them.

“Lived at the SGC for a year after I joined SG-11, pretty much used to being stuck bottom-side,” John explains.

“Yeah, well I meant being stuck Earth-side, until Jackson can figure out whatever the hell this is all about,” Cam says flicking out his wrist and staring down at the symbol branded into his skin.

“Always wanted a tattoo,” John says, sitting on the bench in front of Cameron. “Beats the needles, huh?” he jokes, stroking the dark lines.

Cam just stares at him.

“Well hopefully Dr. Jackson can work his book magic and figure out what happened and how to reverse it.”

“Not convinced it’s just a nifty high-tech body art device?” John asks with a smirk.

“Something tells me no,” Cam remarks.

“Bummer, I was thinking of maybe getting my nipples pierced, it’d be a lot more convenient if—“ Cam groans and punches John in the shoulder.

“Can I get a high-tech Ancient mind scrubber while we’re at it?” Cam says, rubbing his eyes. John grins and claps a hand to Cam’s shoulder. Cam stutters to a stop suddenly, his eyes flicking wide and bright, pupils dilated. He stares at John a little wildly, his gaze flicking to the warm heavy weight of John’s hand still on his shoulder and John pulls away, startled.

“What?” John asks, nervous lilt to his voice as he takes a small barely discernable step backwards.

“N-nothing,” Cam says, clearly shaken before a grin spreads across his face and he shakes his head once and laughs, “got a chill, c’mon let’s go grab some grub.”

John nods but Cam’s back is already turned, John stares at his palm, fingertips tingling like pins and needles, and he swears for a split second the tattoo on his wrist glows and twitches beneath his skin. Trick of the light, John says to himself, ignoring the feeling coiled in the pit of his stomach in favor of following Cam down the corridor towards the mess.

 

***

Three days later Daniel bursts through the door of Teal’c’s on-base quarters with papers clutched in his hand and a look of eureka on his face John has come to know and love over the past year on SG-1. John is sprawled at the foot of Teal’c’s bed, a licorice stick in his hand and one hanging from the side of his mouth.

“I’ve got something,” Daniel says, unnecessarily. Cam ‘yeehaws’ and sits up spilling milk duds all over the floor by his feet.

“I am most pleased you have discovered something in your findings Daniel Jackson, but you could not be more ill-timed. The unrecognized hero is about to save the day, unbeknownst to his companions,” Teal’c replies, hitting the pause button on the remote. Daniel shoots John a curious look, John clambers to his feet and shrugs.

“We watched two seasons of Buffy in three days. Teal’c seems to have a thing for rooting for the underdog.”

“Right.”

“The petite blond gets all the glory while the young Xander Harris is kicked to the sidelines. I do not understand why they do not allow him to train. All young Jaffa are trained to do battle—“ Teal’c’s voice fades as John, Cam, and Daniel make their way down the corridor towards Daniel’s office.

“So what’s the deal Jackson, three days of nothing but television and mission reports and nothing has happened,” Cam says, almost disappointed, clapping his hands together.

“Well as we all know the Ancients weren’t really big on instruction manuals, but from the data brought back by SG-11 and records in the Atlantis database I think I’ve figured out what the device actually is and what’s used for but the how I’m still not sure.” Daniel says, dropping the papers on his desk and flipping through a large volume.

Cam makes a rolling motion with his hands in the universal sign of ‘get on with it’ and Daniel clears his throat, looks slightly put upon and starts.

“As far as I can tell the device was used for…” Daniel smirks slightly, John’s definitely more than a little apprehensive about what the Doctor discovered, “couples counseling.” John’s pretty sure that wasn’t on the long and varied list of possibilities, one more horrifying than the next. Cam stares at John and cocks his head to the side, surveying him. He turns back to Daniel and laughs,

“Oh right.” Daniel simply stares up at him. “You’re serious?!”

“Apparently it creates some kind of bond between its two…recipients, that’s meant to ‘establish a forced union between two or more conflicted individuals to reveal lies and untruths so as to overcome any and all deceptions, to the end that deeper tensions may be relieved for the betterment of the relationship, or relationship ended for the betterment of the individuals’,” Daniel quotes with a sigh.

“So it’s…what?” John asks, running a hand through the back of his hair. He looks over at Cam, hoping he isn’t the only one to be left behind from that explanation, Cam is nodding like he understands but the heavy crease in his brow is his all too familiar ‘I’m just pretending I have any idea what the hell you’re talking about, watch me look pensive.’

“Okay, pretending for a moment that I actually understood even half of that, we can’t work out our couple issues,” Cam shouts, voice going a pitch higher, gesturing wildly between him and John. John makes an offended noise beside him,

“Not with an attitude like that we can’t.” Daniel’s mouth twitches.

“We aren’t a couple Daniel,” Cam tries to explain.

“I don’t think this device was meant solely for romantic couples, Mitchell. It says ‘two or more conflicted individuals,’ I think it was probably used for any variety of relationships. Parent-child, sibling, husband-wife, friendship, co-workers…” Daniel trails off.

“So…it bonds people together to reveal deceptions and and and what?” Cam asks.

“This is where my research is lacking. It says it creates a bond but doesn’t, naturally, go into any kind of detail about what that means.”

“Is this like that time you and Vala were bonded by those bracelets, because I gotta tell you that had some pretty disastrous results for the galaxy,” John says, leaning against Daniel’s table.

“That device was Goa’uld, and also meant as a form of punishment. This, as far as I can see, isn’t supposed to cause physical harm to its users. It sounds like it’s meant as an extreme form of therapy.”

“I hate shrinks,” John says, eying the pages of the book warily.

“How are all these deceptions supposed to be revealed exactly? With this?” Cam questions holding up his wrist and showing the tattoo.

“I’m not sure, I think the tattoo is meant to be taken symbolically, maybe some kind of tell that the device is actually working?” Daniel pushes his glasses up and rubs at his eyes. John crosses his arms over his chest and turns away from the other men, staring at a row of masks lining the wall on the opposite side of Daniel’s cluttered office. He licks his lower lip, trying to process what this means.

“All of your secrets, this device is meant to…reveal them?” John asks, not turning around.

“I wouldn’t say all of them, no,” Daniel says, voice careful. “But presumably anything that’s…holding you back in your relationship…I would say…yes.”

“So like if a couple was having problems they pew pew with the light show and it somehow shows Mrs. Ancient her hubby’s been gettin’ a little ascended tail on the side?” Cam asks.

“Presumably.”

“So how do we stop this?” John asks, turning around, uncurling his arms and clutching at the edge of the table in a white-knuckled grip. He looks a little skittish.

“Haven’t gotten that far yet,” Daniel says, sympathetically.

“Well there’s gotta be a way right? I mean this…they wouldn’t force this on people would they? So maybe there’s some kind of mental component to it.” John closes his eyes and imagines the bond broken, but he’s not sure what that bond is and he’s never really had to try shutting off something with his mind before. He feels slightly ridiculous and opens his eyes. Cam is staring at him with a calculating look.

“What?” John asks, flushing slightly under his gaze.

“We’ll figure this out,” Cam says, calmly, like John is a small child in need of comfort. He turns away again.

“What was that last part you read, about the end?” John asks, craning his neck to look back at Daniel.

“’To the end that deeper tensions may be relieved for the betterment of the relationship, or relationship ended for the betterment of the individuals’”.

“So when this is all over we’ll either be…what BFF or…” Cam looks up at John, his eyes wide and blue, his lips parted slightly on what John is sure is either some kind of sarcastic remark meant to make John feel better or some kind of sincere encouragement which usually only serves to make John feel more like a caged animal. John shakes his head and smirks, self-deprecatingly. He pushes away from the table and moves to leave the overly cramped office.

Cam reaches out an arm and grabs John, tries to turn him around but John doesn’t concede.

“Hey, Major,” Cam says, all authoritative. John slowly turns his head. “We’ll figure this out. We always do.” His voice is the sharp edge of a knife, slow, deliberate, commanding. John nods, he lets himself become aware of Cam’s fingers curled around his bicep, Cam’s own flexed, and John’s eyes flick to the tendons in Cam’s neck, strained, skin flushed and glistening with sweat from the heat of the too small underground room.

John looks up into Cam’s eyes.

“Yes sir.” Cam’s pupils are blown and he snatches his hand away from John like he’s been burned, the surprise and confusion lining his face not quite matching the darkening of his eyes. John’s wrist twinges as he steps out of the room.

 

***

“It’s just a routine mission SGs 5 and 6 discovered some ruins not far from the gate and we’re gonna check it out,” Cam explains, straightening his tac vest.

“Are you sure this is a good idea Cam?” Sam asks, concern clear in her voice and the wrinkle of her brow as she stares between Cam and John.

“Yeah, we still have no idea how that bondage device wo-“ Vala starts, twirling the end of one long pigtail.

“Bonding!” Cam ejaculates loudly. “Bonding device,” he corrects, laughing a little maniacally. Sam tries and fails to suppress a small smile.

“Right. Much less interesting,” Vala concedes, winking at John.

“Like I said, routine mission. Besides Jackson said this thing won’t hurt us, so we go, let the good Doctor make brilliant discoveries, we come home, figure out how to fix this and we all live happily ever after. We good?” Cam says, crossing his arms and leaning against the edge of his P-90. Sam’s smile is a little forced, Teal’c simply nods and Vala slings an arm around John’s shoulders and pulls him bouncing toward the gate room, the line of John’s shoulders straight and tensed.

“Right,” Cam says under his breath, following behind his team.

 

Someone once asked Cam if he was ever sick of being wrong about absolutely everything, and truthfully? He sort of is.

The mission starts off like any other. P37-852 is a quiet uninhabited planet, the stargate erected at the edge of a small cluster of trees, an overgrown path weaving its way through to the ruins of what was probably once a spectacular looking cathedral. The architecture isn’t Ancient.

“Looks almost Gothic,” Jackson had remarked, stroking a hand across the rough stone of a dilapidated wall. And Cam nodded his head like he had any idea how Jackson knew that. Cam suggested the team split up and take a look around. Vala had naturally flounced her way over to Daniel’s side, clutching at his sleeve and grinning, “I choose Daniel’s team!”

Sam and Teal’c were standing just a foot away from Cam, John a few feet away from Daniel. Cam shot John a sympathetic look and mouthed, sorry. John’s shoulders shrugged, and he canted a hip to the side and leaned against the structure. The façade of cool indifference didn’t quite mask the tension still obvious in the square of John’s shoulder and the rigid line of his jaw.

“Keep in radio contact,” Cam had said, motioning for the others to follow him off the path overgrown with vegetation and wild flowers. Birds chirped in the trees, chipmunk like creature with two bushy tails flittered in between bushes and over fallen leaves and branches.

“So Teal’c, Vala tells me you have a thing for the Initiative soldier. I used to watch Buffy with my baby cousin, she always liked Angel. I’m rather partial to Spike myself.” Cam pushed a large branch out of his way, holding it back to let Sam pass. She grinned at him.

“I believe the correct colloquialism is…spoiler alert, Colonel Mitchell. Indeed, I find Angellus rather, boring. I admire Riley’s morality and strong will. I believe he is a good match for the Vampire Slayer.” Cam had laughed then, shaking his head.

“I think you just might have a thing for a man in a unifo—“ and Cam stopped suddenly, the branches of a large thorny bush snapping back to snag at the bottoms of his BDUs.

“Colonel Mitchell, are you unwell?” Teal’c asked, concerned, stopping beside him. Cam breathed out low and deep, bending over to clutch at his thighs.

“Mitchell?” Sam questioned, placing a hand on the back of Cam’s shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Cam assured them, standing up. “Whoo! Just got a bit of vertigo for a minute.” But Sam had still looked concerned and entirely unconvinced. Cam plastered a grin across his face while his heart sped up beneath his chest. His face was growing warm, and warmer, a sweat breaking out across his forehead.

“You do not look fine Colonel Mitchell, perhaps you should sit down.” Cam shook his head, tilted to one side at the rush, deciding that was a really bad idea. His vision went blurry for a moment, Sam grasping his shoulder and the snagging in his vest.

“Cameron?”

“Something…” Cam’s knees gave out beneath him and he knelt down on the rough forest floor, trying to catch breath he wasn’t aware of losing. “Something’s wrong,” he said, panic and fear clutching at the inside of his stomach.

“What is it?” Sam asked, her voice belying her own growing panic. Cam opened his mouth, trying to find the words to explain. His head swam and his chest ached, like pulling several all nighters and homesickness wrapped up in one disorienting package.

“Not me,” Cam had said, shaking his head slowly. He clutched at his vest, reaching for his radio. “Shep—“

“Colonel Mitchell, it’s Daniel, come in,” Daniel’s voice cackled out from the radio beneath his hand. Sam scrambled for her own,

“Daniel? It’s Sam, Col—“

“You guys need to get back here, something’s wrong with Sheppard.” From his position on the ground Cam could see Sam’s wide eyed surprise.

“What’s wrong with Sheppard?” She asked, moving to help Teal’c pull Cam to his feet.

“I don’t know, he just collapsed.”

 

***

“I thought you said this thing couldn’t hurt us!” Cam shouts, less than a foot of space between him and Daniel. Daniel gives him a look that quite clearly says ‘I’m not intimidated by the angry soldier routine’, and Sam places a hand gently on Cam’s shoulder.

“Cam,” she says softly, placating. Cam backs up, breathing heavily.

“I’m sor—” but Daniel already has a hand up, waving his outburst off with a shake of his head.

“Doctor Lam says he’s going to be fine,” Vala reassures Cam, sitting cross-legged at the foot of John’s infirmary bed.

“How can that be fine?” Cam asks, voice tight. He looks down at the major, unconscious and pale.

“He’s just asleep Cam,” Sam reminds him. “He only passed out, has a killer head ache, but he just passed out, the same thing happened to you—“ Sam starts. Cam rounds on her,

“Yeah and what up with that?”

“I think—“ Daniel starts and they all turn towards him. “Obviously the device is supposed to bond you two together.”

“How exactly is this a healthy therapy session?” Cam asks incredulously, twisting his hat nervously in his hands.

“Well the device’s purpose is to force its users to work through their issues,” Daniel says, beginning to pace, his hand stroking his chin and the side of his face.

“Yeah, so?” Cam bites.

“Well, you and Sheppard have been in close proximity over the last three days, barely out of each other’s sight actually,” Daniel thinks out loud.

“Yeah, so?” Cam reiterates.

“Then suddenly we go off world, you two separate and bam Sheppard drops unconscious.”

“And I almost—“

“But that’s not everything. You didn’t,” Daniel says, and he’s smiling.

“We’re not a science project Jackson stop grinning like that.”

“The difference is Sheppard was physically affected by the device and _you_ ,” Daniel says, “were affected by _Sheppard_.”

“What?” Cam asks, staring around at the others, hoping someone would agree Daniel was completely off his rocker.

“Think about it. The same thing happened to Vala and I, except that device was insurance for prisoner transport. Prisoner escapes, he dies and so does the Jaffa responsible for him. Effective means of discipline.”

“Jackson what the hell does this have to do—“ Cam starts but Jackson cuts him off.

“Now obviously the Ancients wanted a device that would force couples to work through issues. What better way to do that than to ensure that neither party could just up and leave. Yes of course you could be in close proximity with one another and simply just not communicate. But after awhile that would certainly get old not to mention extremely inconvenient. I don’t think the device is meant to physically bring harm to someone but but bond its users in a way that would force communication.”

“So if either one of us is separated from the other, we both get sick? To what point? Just before death?”

“Hmm,” Daniel says. “I’m not sure.”

“And what about the fact that I didn’t pass out, is it because of my superior physical prowess?” Cam snarks and there’s a loud snort from behind them. The group turns to find John struggling to pull himself into a sitting position.

“I doubt that very much.”

“Sheppard,” Cam huffs out a laugh of relief and claps a gentle hand against John’s shoulder.

“I think it’s because you weren’t being affected by the device in the same way Sheppard was. You said you could _sense_ that something was wrong with him,” Daniel says and John looks up.

“What?” He asks, confused.

“Yeah,” Cam looks away. “It was like I was…channeling…him. Like I could feel what…”

“What he was feeling.” Daniel finishes and Cam nods.

“What the hell does that mean?” John asks, staring between the two of them.

“I think that means you’ve been given empathic abilities tuned only to major Sheppard.”

“Well that sounds shitty.”


	2. Chromophobia

John dreams of a narrow river, twisting its way through a countryside, golden brown and green. The sun is warm against his pale skin, shining bright in too light eyes, and his hands are smooth and free of calluses and scars as he raises them to shield his face.

There’s a boy on the other riverbed, no more than fifteen or sixteen, in nothing but cut off denim shorts fraying at the knees. Scabs and cuts stand stark against his tan skin as he launches himself off the land to grasp, with a shout of laughter, the rope swinging from a thick tree branch. His hair is sandy and shaggy against cheeks splattered with sun freckles. 

“John!” He shouts, at the peak of his arc before he lets go and splashes into the water below, sending waves to lap at John’s bare feet. “John! C’mere,” the boy surfaces and stretches a hand out towards John, dripping wet, goose bumps raised along the skin of his skinny arm.

“Cameron.”

John wakes to Cam standing over him. He’s wearing USAF sweats and a thin white undershirt, John wonders absently if his bare feet are cold against the concrete floor. He rolls over onto his back and rubs his eyes.

“What?” He asks, clenching his eyes closed.

“Came to see if you were alright,” Cam says softly, but they’re all alone in the small infirmary. 

“Oh?” John questions, letting his hand drop and moving to sit up, feeling vulnerable lying down with Cam poised over him.

“Yeah, had this…weird feeling.”

“Try tums,” John says, swiping a hand through his hair. Cam sighs.

“I keep wondering if what I’m feeling is…what I’m feeling or if I’m pickin’ up signals from the mothership,” Cam tries to explain, sitting hunched over at the edge of John’s bed, staring at the wall opposite. John stares at Cam’s profile, eyes down cast beneath a heavy scowled brow and wonders,

“What are you feeling now?” 

“Mild irritation. Also I’m kind of hungry.” They don’t say anything for a moment but when Cam looks over at John in the dark they both break into identical grins. 

“Daniel will figure it out,” John says, closing his eyes and collapsing back against his pillows. Cam sighs heavily beside him and John can feel the shift of weight as Cam falls back against his thighs. John tenses beneath him, and knows instantly when Cam does the same. 

“Like _that_ ,” Cam hisses, pulling himself to his feet. John plays dumb, and from the look of frustration on Cam’s face it must be believable. Cam runs a hand through his short hair and rubs at his eyes.

“Every time we’ve tou—“ Cam starts but John coughs loudly. 

“Look Cam, I’m pretty beat,” John fakes a yawn, and this time Cam can see the bullshit clear in it but John just looks away, “Can we do this some other time?” Cam doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stares down at John in the meager glow of the infirmary. 

“Yeah, ‘course,” he manages finally, voice soft. His footsteps are silent as he disappears out the open doorway. 

***

John has this life philosophy. The first rule is: all those awkward things you don’t want to deal with, you don’t talk about; they don’t have to exist if you don’t acknowledge them. But John has known Cam long enough by now to know they sit on opposite sides of the philosophy spectrum. Cam is all about the caring and the sharing, and John, he gets it, comes with the whole ‘Team Leader’ deal. Discord is bred from bottled up negativity and latent conflict, but John thinks he does a pretty good job deterring Cam from forcing a ‘moment’ between the two of them. 

He all but plasters himself to Vala’s side, who seems more than happy to have the company if the endless rounds of ‘Go Fish’ John is forced to play with her are anything to go by. It’s a small price to pay for her protection, John thinks. When Cam shows up looking hell bent on having a serious discussion Vala jumps to her feet and claps her hands together, slinging an arm around Cam trying to coax him over to the bed she and John are sitting on.

“Mitchell Mitchell Mitchell,” Vala coos grinning, “come to join us have you?”

“Uh…” Cam says, and the team has learned by now not to agree to anything without all the facts explicitly stated.

“We were just about to make things more interesting,” Vala says hopping back up on the bed. “Strip gold fish!”

“It’s ‘Go’ Fish and no,” John says, shuffling the battered deck, intently _not_ looking at Cam, who’s probably trying to share an ‘oh Vala’ smirk with him, a look perfected by 5/6ths of SG-1. Because John knows Vala can cheat at any card game, and he can see the way she’s looking at him, has been looking between the two of them for a good long while now, and he doesn’t think the suggestion was for her benefit. 

John stares down at his fingers, dexterously flying over the cards, and tries to think about anything but his usual pastime: the ‘Is Cameron Mitchell Wearing Underwear’ game, which John has been playing ever since their ‘Diplomatic’ mission to P4X-352 ended in the time honored tradition of Cam losing his pants. Cam had grinned and shrugged and said in a stage whisper to John, “least I opted for skivvies today.” And John was going to inquire further on what exactly that implied about his underwear wearing habits, but he was too busy trying to keep his brain from leaking out his ears to respond. 

So John tries his best to at least look like he’s thinking about something innocuous or heterosexual and spares a thought for Vala’s breasts but then he’s looking over at Cam and there’s that _look_ in his eyes John swears he keep seeing and he’d be more than okay to see it on a regular basis except it’s always followed by confusion and general walking away and awkward silences.

“I uh…think I’ll pass but…we…” Cam stops and stares at John again. They both twitch slightly and Vala is staring between the two of them as they both reach for their wrists at the same time. 

“What the fuck,” John hisses, looking down at the tattoo, glowing a dull gray, and this time John can’t really convince himself that it’s just a trick of the light because Cam is looking at his own, glowing a fiery red-orange. 

Cam spares John only a small glance before he ducks out of Vala’s quarters clutching at his wrist. 

***

Two days later and Daniel is still no closer to finding out how the hell to break the bond than John is to discovering the cure for cow-licks. He runs a wet hand through his hair, but all that accomplishes is getting his hair, his hand, and the collar of his t-shirt damp. Cam knocks on the open doorway and John looks up into the mirror and nods.

“Uh hey, so I was just checking in with Daniel and he still has no idea what’s with the whole…glowy thing,” Cam says, cautiously, holding up his wrist like John will have no idea what he’s talking about otherwise.

“Look, we should figure this whole, ‘forced leave’ thing out,” John says, turning around. “I know you hate being stuck in here.”

“Yeah, about that I actually…well I have an idea,” Cam starts, and he’s no longer looking directly at John, and his voice has an edge of hesitation in it. John knows he’s not going to like whatever it is. “My cousin, she’s uh…gettin’ married.” 

“Congratulations?” John says after a long pause John figures was meant for him to draw conclusions.

“Yeah well…uh you see my Aunt got remarried a few months back and I couldn’t make it to the wedding because of the Ori thing, and well my mama she’s gonna be pretty upset if I can’t make it to ma’ favorite cousin’s.”

“You want to go?” John asks.

“Yeah,” Cam says.

“Which means I have to go?” John asks.

“Yeah,” Cam says. “Please?” 

John stares at Cam, the way his shoulders are hunched ever so slightly from the hands he has shoved in the front pockets of his faded blue jeans. Cam is looking at him; his eyebrows ever so slightly raised giving him a really earnest look, like a small child waiting to be told whether or not he can have just one more cookie. And John knows it’s a terrible idea, that he should shake his head and say as much, but he knows what it says in his personnel files, probably stamped in bright red caps-locked letters highlighted in garish yellow ink: John Sheppard-self-destructive dumbass. 

“When do we leave?”

***

Cam can’t suppress the smile that spreads across his face when John whistles appreciatively at his baby. He’s seen the Mustang before, of course, but the reaction never lessens, and John runs a delicate hand across the hood like it’s the inside of a woman’s thigh. 

“This mean I get to drive her?” John asks with a sideways grin and Cam debates it, before he shrugs and nods.

“Yeah, I suppose it does.” John sends him a look that makes Cam second guess that decision, before John’s pulling open the passenger’s side door and climbing gracefully into the car. Cam slides in beside him and he revs the engine a couple of times before peeling out, just to see the grin spread across John’s face, real and bright.

“Yeah!” Cam shouts, laughing, “in just roughly eleven hours we will be stuffing ourselves with home cooked food in the company of good people!”

“How many good people?” John asks, staring at him hard from the passenger’s seat. Cam’s smile falters slightly, feeling of unease pressing its way in beneath the euphoria of his mother’s garlic mashed potatoes. He takes his eyes off the road for a moment to steal a glance at John, tensed in his seat beside him. 

“Good people,” Cam says, his voice level and controlled, “people who will leave you the Hell alone if I ask ‘em to.”

“I’m not—“ John starts, and Cam feels even more uncomfortable and shifts slightly in his seat, noting, bemused, John’s mirrored movements.

“Man, this is _too_ damn freaky. Relax Sheppard,” Cam says, chastising. John shoots him an irritated scowl.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what,” Cam says, close to snapping.

“They’re _my_ …feelings,” John says, like the word pains him to say, and Cam notes with mild amusement that if the look on John’s face is anything to go by it actually does.

“You look like you’re suckin’ on a lemon,” Cam tells him, smirking.

“Shut up, they’re mine.” John says petulantly, curling in on himself, and practically pouting.

“Yeah, well I don’t _want_ them,” Cam tells him. 

“ _Ow,_ ” they both hiss in unison, Cam shaking his arm and staring down at his wrist and John pressing his thumb to his own. 

“Did it change color?” Cam asks. 

“Yeah, mine’s kind of an ugly looking brown, you?” John says beside him.

“Pink.” 

“Pink?” John snorts. 

“What?” Cam asks, indignant.

“Nothing, nothing,” John says, and Cam can hear the suppressed laughter, “really becoming against your skin tone.” Cam rolls his eye and spares John a glance; he’s languid in the seat beside Cam, limbs loose and practically flopped across the leather. Cam looks back down at the tattoo on his wrist and starts in surprise, and when John turns to him, he turns it into a short cough until John looks away uninterested. He’s not sure what it means, or why he doesn’t really want John to know, but the unease is gone, and the delicate lines of the symbol are glowing faintly blue. 

***

“So I have this theory,” Cam says, scooping up more peach cobbler on the end of his fork. John quirks a brow at him, and takes a sip of coffee from the chipped ceramic mug in his hands. They’re sitting in a small mom’n’pop diner just off the highway outside of Oakly, Kansas. The walls are decorated with what looks like the contents of an old shed. License plates, bicycle wheels, and shiny hubcaps. 

“Yeah, about the rainbow bright tattoos,” Cam explains, which Cam supposes isn’t really an explanation, and John is looking at him like he agrees that it isn’t much of an explanation and Cam is overcome with this sense of annoyance, and he flicks his gaze back down to his wrist, and the tattoo is now a pale white mark against his skin. 

John is looking at him expectantly when Cam raises his gaze. There’s a cat clock on the wall beside his head, and its eyes move back and forth every second. Cam suspects it meows on the hour, and he’s pretty sure they shouldn’t be here to find out, because he thinks John still has his sidearm on him somewhere and he doesn’t think the employees would be too keen on having 9mm sized holes in their walls.

“Uhm, just that they’re probably…entertainment,” Cam says, lying. Poorly. John quirks an eyebrow at him. “You know…like…’oh what color will it be next!” He shoves another forkful of cobbler in his mouth.

“That’s a really stupid theory, Mitchell, even for you.” John says smirking. 

“Sir,” Cam says, trying for authoritative. John just rolls his eyes.

“I hardly ever call you sir when we’re _in_ uniform Mitchell, now eat your pie,” John tells him, grabbing his own fork and swiping a small bite. Cam tries to stab his hand with his fork but John snaps his hand back fast enough.

“Insubordination!” Cam shouts. John makes lewd noises as he slides the fork in his mouth and people from the table beside theirs is staring. Cam covers his face with a hand. 

“Sorry, _sir,_ ” John says pointedly, smirking. Cam’s wrist twinges slightly, and this time Cam’s not sure if it’s his tattoo, or his pulse quickening. 

***

Cam hates being a passenger. It’s what makes him feel antsy on commercial planes, and has him drumming his fingers almost nervously against his thigh with John behind the wheel. That and the fact that John seems to take every caution and speed limit sign as a personal challenge. Which Cam would be a hypocrite if he complained about; they’re pilots for a reason.

But Cam also hates being a passenger because with the sun warm against his face, and classic rock streaming softly from the radio, it’s only too easy and he’s all too content, to simply close his eyes, and fall asleep.

Cam dreams of an impossibly blue ocean, so sharp and clear he can see schools of fish darting beneath him, their scales shimmering in the sunlight high and bright over head. He’s straddling a white surfboard, a strap cuffed to his ankle in the cool water.

“Fuck yes, this next one!” Cam turns and squints against the sunlight to stare at the boy floating beside him. His green eyes catch the light reflecting off the water and they sparkle, his dark unruly hair sticks up every which way in the black, plastered to his forehead in the front. Cam watches as the boy positions himself, his eyes staring straight ahead to the wave building out at sea and growing steadily closer, building, building. 

His face is steely determination, eyes concentrated, muscles straining against his board and flexed down to fingers and toes, curled. Then the wave is there and he’s shouting, “Cam, _Cam_!” His face nearly split in two with the size of his grin, barely able to contain it as he moves. His board an extension, another limb, carefully and easily controlled through the water, like a fighter through air. 

The blue is endless all around them, ocean and sky infinitely stretched toward a horizon sloping over the curve of the earth as the wave curls around them, a tunnel of blue and green, white foam falling and crashing behind them. 

So loud he can hardly hear the boy as he screams, elation, pure and utter blissed out ecstasy, as his board bounces over the water, the curve of his spine paralleled to the curve of the ocean above him. And he cuts sharply, and flies, impossibly quickly, as though someone has hit fast forward, but the boy is arcing above the water, and Cam thinks for sure he won’t land, but he does, impossibly dexterous, his feet glued to the board beneath him. He rides the wave out to the shore with Cam behind him, his stomach in his chest and his heart lost somewhere out in the wide and never ending stretch of aqua. 

The boy collapses against the sand staring up at the near empty sky, at the clouds moving in the wind off the shore and Cam lies beside him in the shallow water, the ocean lapping at them, over them and the boy is panting beside him and Cam turns to face him, to stare at the slope of his nose and his parted lips and laughs out of breath,

“John.”

Cam’s eyes flutter open, the sky blue outside the passenger’s side window as Cam stares up. He’s sprawled in his seat, his arms crossed and lying against his stomach, legs falling open in a v, cramped in the small front seat. He can feel eyes on him, a sixth sense perfected over the years. Without moving his head he looks down at his wrist: golden orange. He’s not sure what that means, but there’s a warm weight settled in his stomach he usually associates with his mother’s home cooking, and watching the football game with his dad and granddad on Thanksgiving. 

He makes a show of moving, pretending to wake up, and when he looks over John is staring ahead at the highway laid out before them.

“Rise and shine sleeping beauty.”

***

The sun is setting by the time John pulls into the gravel driveway, pebbles kicked up on the underside of Cam’s Mustang that never fail to make him wince and pat her dash consolingly. John parks behind Cam’s brother’s red pick-up, and cuts the engine, hesitating. But Cam just smiles and practically bounds out the front seat, slamming the door behind him. 

Mosquitoes buzz around his head, as he makes his way to the trunk, John trailing behind him. They both look up when a screen door creaks open and slams shut. 

“Cameron!” A small voice shouts and Cam hollers, and squats on the ground beside his car as the child runs into his open arms. He scoops her up, a young girl barely six years old with blonde pigtails tied together with purple ribbon, the golden retriever that chases her out the front door, barks at Cam’s legs before running over to goose John. 

Cam grins as John leans over to pet Milo, swinging Becca in his arms as he pulls his duffel out of the trunk of his car. 

“Unca Cam’ron I made cookies!” Becca tells him, grasping Cam around the shoulders and pointing to the open door, the light from the front hall pouring out onto the darkening porch.

“You did!” Cam says excitedly.

“All by yourself?” John asks, smirking at Cam’s niece. She nods at him. “I’m not allowed to use the oven by myself,” John says to her and she giggles, collapsing against Cam’s chest.

“Becca, this is my friend John.”

“He comin’ to the weddin? Imma be the flower girl so I get to frow all the flowers and stuff. It’s a real portant job.” Becca says, out of breath with no sign of stopping. “I been practicin’ Unca Cam wanna see? Wanna see?” She wriggles out of Cam’s grip and he sets her down onto the driveway, she holds up both her hands, Cam grasps one in his own and stares in amusement at John, shifting a little uncomfortably behind him.

“I don’t got all day!” Becca demands waving her hand in front of John; John smirks and takes it, allowing himself to be led inside. It takes Cam’s mother even less time to pull him into a hug, and she’s running a hand up and down the back of his hair like she used to when he was a kid and he buries his face in the crook of her neck and grins,

“Hey mama.”

“Oh Cameron, it’s good to have you home.” She lets him go, swipes a hand along his cheek. “And you brought company! Not that Vala again though,” she teases. Cam flushes slightly at the memory of his last encounter with overnight visitors and his parents. She winks at him.

“You must be Major Sheppard,” she says, smiling up at John. John looks a little stricken for a moment, because it looks like his mother is about to pull him into a hug, but she refrains and instead squeezes his shoulders with a bright grin.

“Uh…John ma’am,” he says politely, and Cam swears the tips of his ears are a little red.

“I’ll call you John on the condition you call me Wendy, dear,”

“Alright Wendy dear.” She hits him on the shoulder with the dish towel clutched in her hand.

“Fresh! You’ve been spending too much time with Cameron,” she says, leading them both into the kitchen. 

“I think Cam is spending too much time with me, ma’…Wendy,” John says, catching himself and grinning sheepishly at Cam’s mother. Cam steps up to the counter and grabs a cookie off the plate by the stove, the chocolate chips still gooey and warm.

“You’ve been rubbing off on Cam, huh?” Wendy says, absently pulling oven mitts on. Cam looks up when John splutters.

“N—! Ye…uh,” John is definitely red, and Cam is getting uncomfortable when he wasn’t moments before which he thinks mean’s John is—

“Sorry but where’s your restroom?”

“Down the hall to the right, hon,” Wendy replies, waving him off. John ducks out of the kitchen and disappears around the corner. “I’m so glad you brought company. I just love meeting your friends Cameron. He seems like a nice man.”

“Yeah,” Cameron nods, fingers sliding over the skin of his wrist. He thinks he should think about covering the tattoo up, the potential for leading to awkward and security breaching questions all too great. 

“Hey, ma, could you watch Sheppard for a bit, I need to go check something.”

“Watch him?” His mother asks, quirking a brow, “He going to steal the silver?”

“No I just meant…I don’t know what I meant,” Cam laughs it off and shrugs, “I’ll be right back.” His mother stares at him, shrewd and calculating. He hates that look, makes him want to swear he’s made his bed and done his homework. Cam heads out of the kitchen before she can say anything and starts up the stairs to his old bedroom. 

Everything is pretty much the same as when he left it nearly two decades ago. His bed sits beneath the window on the far side of the room, the small wooden desk his grandfather built him in the corner. A cot is set up beside his bed, presumably for either he or Sheppard, whoever loses that game of rock-paper-scissors. 

Cam flips the light switch by the door, the small room illuminated by the table lamp on the corner of his desk, the one with the WWI canon replica for a base. He makes his way to his closet, pushes past old clothes, and some of his mother’s things to find the trunk buried beneath sneakers, and baseball cards, his broken skateboard, and sweaters that must belong to his father. 

The trunk never had a proper combination, and Cam lines up 0-0-0 and the cover snaps up easily. He rifles through the various junk, looking for…

“Yahtzee,” he grins, his fingers curling around the small wooden box in the bottom of the trunk. He opens it, prom photos falling out, concert and movie ticket stubs get pushed aside in favor of the small pouch Cam has no idea how he remembers existing, let alone its location.

“Haven’t seen this in _years_ ,” Cam says to himself, undoing the pouch and pouring the contents into his hand.

A large smooth black ring drops into his open palm, a curled up little card dropping beside it. Cam fits it onto the ring finger on his left hand and watches the smooth black surface turn a deep cerulean. He unfurls the slip of paper and looks at the label beside the swatch of blue: _Calm, peaceful._


	3. Nostalgia

  


“What the hell am I doing?” John asks himself, leaning against the bathroom door, back cushioned by towels and bathrobes hanging haphazardly on hooks screwed into the heavy wood. He pushes himself straight and stares around the small washroom. The floor is a little uneven, tilted at a slight angle, the oak built in cabinets a little wonky, overflowing with old fishing magazines and Home and Garden Catalogues. The tiles on the wall beneath the peeling wallpaper are a faded pale vanilla, several cracked and missing. There’s a metal rooster hung above the toilet.

He doesn’t really have to use the bathroom but he feels self-conscious, like if he doesn’t go Cam’s mother will know he just really wanted to hide for a minute and wow, when did he regress to a fourteen year old girl anyway? So he goes for posterity, washing his hands after with hand soap whittled into what John thinks is either a cat or a cow, and heads back to the kitchen to find Cam.

Instead, he finds Wendy alone, two glasses of milk and a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table in front of her, and a look on her face that Sheppard’s seen on a variety of mother’s before. That they all just happen to belong to the parent’s of girl’s he’s dated however, slightly concerns and confuses him.

“Come, sit,” Wendy says, gesturing to the kitchen chair on the other side of the table, John obeys, sliding onto the cow patterned cushion spilling stuffing onto the wooden floor beneath the table. “I think Cam is helping Ash tuck Becca in,” Wendy says, pushing the glass of milk towards John, and watching as he takes a tentative sip. She doesn’t wait long before asking,

“How long have you and Cam known each other?” Her arms crossed comfortably on the table in front of her. John takes another sip of milk, curls his hands around the cold glass and shifts, the chair creaking beneath him.

“We’ve been working together for a little over a year now,” John tells her. Ever since Cam came to lead SG-1, back when it was just SG-he; Cam had offered John a spot on what was turning out to be a very small team. “SG-you and me!” Cam’d say with a grin every time SG-1 was called to accompany an away team, not yet large enough to go off on its own, babysitting duty, or ‘Stargate Supplement—take twice daily’ John joked. John never really knew why Cam had picked him, out of every file that came across his desk, why him, because John was pretty sure half his COs had him labeled as ‘not quite worth the effort’ but then John was being pulled from SG-11, trading in a digit on his patch for a spot on the front-line team.

“But uh, we met at the Academy,” John continues with a nod.

“Really? Cam never told me that,” Wendy says, surprised.

“Maybe he forgot,” John shrugs with a shy self-deprecating smile.

“Oh come on now, face like that is hard to forget,” Wendy winks with a smirk, scooping up cookie crumbs into a small pile and standing to sweep them into the trash.

“You’re gonna’ make me blush ma’am,” John smirks, ducking his head a little awkwardly. But it makes him wonder if Cam does remember, they weren’t exactly best friends back then, barely acquaintances really because John found himself falling hard and fast for Cadet Cameron Mitchell’s blue eyes and southern twang. He was bordering dangerous territory back then, and all signs read Keep Out and All Trespassers Will Be Booted Back Home and he found it easier to keep his distance than torture himself. He never really did well being told he couldn’t have the things he wanted.

“Yeah, I was roommates with a friend of his,” John explains, snagging a cookie off the plate.

 

***

“I hate being in a car all day, I still can’t feel my butt,” Cam complains, and he brought it up so it’s not John’s fault when he turns to look. Cam is rubbing at his ass with the heel of his hand and John turns away to hide his smirk and swallows down the offer to feel it for him.

“’Kay gramps, you want the bed? I’ll take the cot,” John says, waving a hand to the neatly made bed on the other side of Cameron’s childhood room.

“You’re a guest, you take the bed, I got the cot,” Cam says, all hospitality. John wonders if he’s just afraid of what his mother will do if she finds out he let John take the cot. John stares around the room in mild fascination, like everything else in the Mitchell household Cam’s room is…quaint. The bedspread is a flannel pattern, an old army blanket folded at the foot, there’s an oak chest at the end of Cam’s bed that looks like a family heirloom.

“I bet if we lift up your mattress we won’t even find any porn mags,” John remarks, collapsing onto the cot and grinning teasingly up at Cam rifling through his duffel on the other side of the small room.

“Nope,” Cam says, “they’re in my old tree house.” He nods out the open window and John turns to look, can see the edge of one wooden wall on the far side of the yard.

“Tree house, huh?” John remarks. “Always wanted a tree house when I was a kid, my brother and I used to make forts in the basement with every cushion, pillow, and blanket in the house. Used to piss the maids off.” John smirks, leaning back against the edge of Cam’s bed. Cam steps over to him, his fist cradled in his open palm and looks down at John expectantly. John mirrors the position and they both shake their fists three times.

“Rock,” Cam grins, his hand still curled into a fist, staring down at John’s scissored fingers. “You get the bed.” John shrugs lazily and stands up. “There are extra toothbrushes in the bottom left drawer in the bathroom.” Cam tells him as John heads out into the darkened hallway.

When John gets back to the room, his teeth freshly brushed and clad in nothing but low slung pajama bottoms, Cam is already in his cot. The light in the room is dim, falling over Cam’s eyes, presumably why, John thinks, he has a pillow thrown over his face, one arm stretched across it, the other flung over the side of the cot. He’s bare-chested, faded blue sheets falling just over his hips, clinging to the bulge nestled by Cam’s groin. John stops, shoves his folded clothes into his duffel, his eyes trailing down Cam’s body, attention focused on the wrinkle of fabric over his crotch. _It’s the sheets, and his pants, you can’t distinguish anything_ , John tells himself, but his dick isn’t really cooperating because he’s hard, and flushed, and trying to ignore his own need, pushing at his dick with the heel of his hand.

When he glances back over, he can see the soft swell of Cam’s cock as it jerks beneath the covers, and John is pretty certain that Cam is in fact, not wearing pants. Cam’s hips stutter slightly, seeking friction of their own accord and John is torn between watching Cam get hard and fearing getting caught being there himself and he flips the light switch, casting the room into darkness and moves to the bed.

“Sleep tight Mitchell,” John says, trying for nonchalance. Cam grunts in response and, that is so not helping, John thinks, climbing into the small bed and staring up at the dark ceiling, resisting the urge to get off; his fingers practically twitching with the desire to wrap around his throbbing dick. He wonders if Cam is feeling the same, wonders if Cam is feeling the same because he is. If Cam wouldn’t be hard right now if John hadn’t been staring openly.

John tilts his head, and from his vantage point, with the moonlight streaming in the open window he can see Cam’s hand fluttering softly over his cock through the sheets. The movement can’t be doing much more than teasing him, and John’s own cock jumps in his sweats as he watches. Cam hisses softly, practically inaudible, voice muffled into the pillow he still has over his face and his movements grow more deliberate.

John’s arousal grows with every press and stroke of Cam’s fingers over the sheets and he thinks that as Cam grows more and more desperate he gets more and more turned on, but he realizes with a jolt it’s the other way around. John recalls every masturbatory fantasy he’s ever had, plays them on repeat in his mind until he feels like he’s going to give himself blue balls, but Cam’s breath is stuttered, and he’s panting as quietly as he can into the pillow over his face.

_Going down on Brady Donavan in the archives at the school library, junior year; the way Randy Markus groaned around John’s cock as he was deep throated for the first time; Captain Anders’ teeth on the back of his throat and his fingers in John’s ass…_

John watches Cam’s hand slide beneath the covers, finally, the shape of his hand curling around his cock and tugging, hard and fast until he comes with a stuttered grunt, and John closes his eyes, his own hand finding its way beneath the waistband of his boxers, it only takes him three hard strokes before he jerks, spilling into his own hand, biting at his lip, silently.

 

***

In the early hours of the morning John dreams of his fingers clasping around Cam’s, dripping wet. He tugs to pull the boy up onto shore but Cam is grinning, wicked, and pulls him off balance until John is falling forward into the cool clear water. Cameron’s arms wrap around John’s midriff to steady him on the slippery wet rocks beneath his feet.

Cam makes sure he’s alright before he jumps on his back, pushing John beneath the water. John grabs at Cam’s bare stomach and Cam jerks away. John surfaces; his hair falling in damp clumps around his face as he grins at Cam, trying to look irritated and failing miserably.

When John wakes up, the sun is streaming in through the open window, across his face. He yawns, and stretches his arms above his head, smacking his hands against a wall he forgets is there. He rolls over and sees that the cot is empty, the sheets rumpled, and the pillow dented from Cam’s head. His bladder is full and his cock half hard, and John throws the covers off him and slides out of bed before either one of them turns into something more than just an inconvenience. He pads softly through the hallway to the small bathroom, the door opens just as he reaches out a hand to knock.

“Whoa, hey Shep,” Cam says, jumping a little, startled. John rubs at the back of his head sheepishly and apologizes. He figures this can go down one of two ways, awkward avoidance of eye contact which would pretty much be like saying, ‘hey I know what you sound like when you come,’ or he could act completely normal and hope it convinces Cam he’s in the clear.

“I have to pee.” John says, and Cam nods.

“All yours,” he says, moving to the side, and John doesn’t even flinch when Cam brushes past him, doesn’t so much as twitch at the smell of soap scrubbed clean skin, or Cam’s damp hair, or the drop of water running down the side of Cam’s neck he wants to lick away. Nope, he plays it totally cool.

When John makes it down stairs after he showers and pulls on a clean t-shirt and jeans, there are ten people in the kitchen, besides Wendy and Cameron he knows none of them. Cam waves him over from the stairs and John smiles politely at everyone, sitting in the chair Cam is waving him towards.

“Okay, introductions!” Cam is grinning and he goes around the table, older couple across from him, “Aunt Jenna and Uncle Patrick,” teenage boy with blonde hair and braces, “my cousin Adam,” skinny pair of twins in their mid twenties, “cousins Alicia and Rachel,” and Cam continues around the table.

“I’m probably never going to remember half of you,” John apologizes with a grin.

“Don’t worry John, I don’t know half of them either and I hear I’m related to them.” John turns to the voice, it belongs to a woman with strawberry colored hair curled around her face. She’s pretty, John thinks, and can see a little of Cam in the bow of her lips and the angle of her teeth when she smiles at him.

“It is very unfortunate we share genes, yes,” Cam says, slinging an arm around her shoulder, “this is my baby cousin Kara,” Cam introduces. Kara rolls her eyes and throws his arm away.

“I’m his oldest cousin and he still won’t stop calling me that,” she mock sighs but she’s smiling fondly at Cam.

“I used to walk you home from school every day Kara, you’ll always be a baby to me.” She sticks her tongue out at Cam and pulls a face, grabbing a muffin out of the basket on the table before she waves at John and heads out into the yard. Cam is completely at ease, John notes, maybe slightly too at ease around him, too friendly, all smiles and shoulder pats like he’s overcompensating John thinks. He catches Cam glancing at him when he thinks John isn’t looking, expression on his face similar to Teal’c’s when he’s working on a particularly difficult Sudoku puzzle. It’s unnerving.

When Cam isn’t sneaking glances at him, or introducing him to family, or shuffling him in between cousins and aunts, he’s touching. John watches him. Watches as Cam picks up Becca and tosses her screaming into the air, catching her in his arms and wrapping himself around her, tickling beneath her ribs until she cries uncle. He watches him chase his cousins through the yard with a super soaker, coming into the house dripping wet for a towel. He watches Cam throw a Frisbee with his dog, and hug his mother from behind distracting her as he sneaks a spoonful of the chili she has cooking on the stovetop, and he watches as Cam ducks the oven mit she throws at his head, chasing him from the kitchen.

He watches Cam hug his uncles, get smothered in kisses by aunts, pat his cousins on the back, and throw his arms lazily around friends. After dinner, an event more boisterous and festive than any celebration John Sheppard has ever been to, the Mitchell’s mill around the house with coffee mugs and reminisce. John has enjoyed himself more than he’d ever admit to, and he likes Cam’s family, but the differences in his own now stand so stark against this backdrop of love that it makes John shift uncomfortably against the cold countertop he’s leaning against, and he takes the mug in his hands (cow printed, John notices) and retreats to the quiet of the front porch.

He sits on the top step and curls his hands around the warm mug, staring out into the fading light. The darkness is creeping over the edge of the trees in the distance, the sky a deep cerulean, the porch light bright enough to start attracting moths as they pelt towards the bulb. There are fireflies flickering in the distance. John doesn’t turn when he hears the screen door open and close softly behind him. The footsteps on the creaking porch tell him his intruder is female, and the delicate hand falling gently on his shoulder confirms it.

“Hey John.” The girl sits beside him, her bare feet flat on the step below, sun dress falling over her knees and across her thighs.

“Hi Kara,” John says and he watches as she leans back, her weight on her palms flat on the porch behind her, her legs parting slightly, and her dress creeps up a few inches past decent and the strap of her dress slips down her shoulder. John eyes her appreciatively, slender legs, hour-glass figure, swell of her breasts, and pink lips, eyes bright and blue. John lets his gaze stay fixed on her eyes and she smirks.

“So, Cameron asked me to come check up on you,” Kara explains.

“He did?” John asks, watching her. She nods.

“He had this look on his face,” she starts, “the same look he gave me when he was trying to fix me up with this guy for prom.”

“Oh really?” John asks.

“Yeah, seems to think we’d ‘really hit it off’,” Kara tells him, voice dropping an octave in a poor imitation of Cam. John turns away.

“Sorry, the uh…girlfriend position’s been sort of terminated,” John says, hunching over, looking into his mug. He flicks a gaze over at Kara, who smirks at him, sitting up and smoothing her dress out.

“Hmm. I sort of maybe figured,” Kara says. She’s looking at John, with eyes the same color as Cameron’s and lips twisted up into a conspiratorially smirk, the same one he’s seen on Cam countless times just before they do something heroically stupid, usually involving C4.

“I can be a really excellent hag though,” Kara is telling him, hanging off his arm and smiling. The rational voice in John’s head says to shut up but Kara is looking at him with open, kind eyes, and John wonders if this sympathetic listener thing is genetic, because John isn’t sure why he says it but he tells her,

“Well, it’s your lucky day then…I’m still screening auditions for that part.” John can feel the heat rushing to his face, can feel it in the tips of his ears, but it’s out there.

“Why are you outside, John?” Kara asks, and it throws John for a second because that wasn’t exactly what he was expecting after thrusting open the proverbial doors to his quiet little closet hideaway.

“I uh…needed air. For thinking.”

“About what?” Kara asks, and John realizes she’s still hanging off his arm, her left hand rubbing up and down softly, almost absently.

“That,” John admits, staring down at where their bodies are pressed together.

“Oh,” Kara says, sheepishly, ducking away from John.

“Your family is really…affectionate,” John explains. Kara looks at him thoughtfully. “I don’t…mind it.”

“We are a touchy bunch us Mitchells, but actually…” Kara smirks, and tucks her hair behind her ear. “I’m cold and you’re really unnaturally warm John Sheppard,” she flutters her eye lashes up at him and John smirks. He sets his mug down between his feet and pulls the long sleeve plaid shirt he’s wearing off and helps Kara into it, her arms and legs he sees, now, covered in goose bumps. “Such a gentleman.”

“That’s me,” John says softly.

“You’re not from a large family?” Kara asks, resuming her position leaning comfortably against John. John slings an arm around her and shakes his head.

“No. My dad has money, he worked really hard when I was growing up, so he wasn’t really home much. My brother and I were raised by nannies.” John says, swirling his coffee in his mug, watching it slosh up the sides.

“Your mom not around?” Kara asks softly. John tenses and Kara’s fingers start brushing up and down his forearm.

“She died when I was a kid.”

“I’m so sorry John,” Kara says, squeezing his bicep and she sounds it, more sincere then John’s used to, no pity laced beneath the surface of her words. “My mom passed away when I was fifteen, cancer. That’s when Cam and I grew really close, I came to live with them for awhile.” Kara’s voice hitches and John squeezes her shoulder.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of family bonding in the Sheppard house,” John tells her. He remembers meals at his house, eating dinner in the big dining room, the expansive mahogany table stretching endlessly. He and Dave would eat alone, sitting across from one another at one end of the table, the maid and the nanny standing and watching and waiting to tend to their every need and whim. Dave would ramble about school, the dog he walks by every day on the way home, the box of crayons he spilled upstairs, how many times he went to the bathroom that day; he wouldn’t ever shut up. But the silence was worse, so John listened and nodded and smiled when Dave would look up at him. John would glance down at the chair at the head of the table, the empty plate and shining untouched silverware set out in front of it. Dad never made it home for dinner.

“We used to host Christmas at our house, family and dad’s corporate clients, it was awful,” John confides. He thinks of the suits, the ties that were always too tight and uncomfortable, Dave getting reprimanded for making faces at him across the table. It was always prim and proper, best behavior. He thinks of Cam’s family, food spilling literally and figuratively off an eclectic mismatch of dishes, of Cam’s family screaming trying to be heard over their neighbor, and Cam’s little old grandfather practically deaf, throwing a dinner roll at one of the kids for teasing him about his dentures.

 

***

The sun is shining bright on Cam’s face, the smell of salt filling his nostrils as water crashes over and around him. His body sinks into the wet sand beneath him. His skin is cold exposed to the air and the wind as the waves wash out to sea.

John turns to look at him, his face scrunched, one eye screw shut tight against the light, his open green eye bright. He’s smiling at Cam. He has sand in his hair and along his face like stubble. Cam reaches a hand out to brush it away and

“Cameron hon.” Someone is whispering above him. He opens his eyes and stares up at his mother, hovering over his cot.

“Yeah?” He asks, voice raspy.

“Shh, John is still sleeping.” Cam turns and looks up at the bed beside him, and John’s lumpy form beneath the blankets, his hair in messy spikes splayed out on his borrowed pillow.

“I’ll be right down,” Cam whispers. His mother nods and makes her way quietly across the room, closing the door silently behind her. Cam throws the covers off and climbs out of the cot, its metal legs squeaking noisily, but Sheppard doesn’t move. He doesn’t know how it doesn’t wake him up, can’t fathom how he managed to stub his toe the morning before, hopping around the room cursing and practically knocking over most of his furniture without so much as rousing a sleepy grunt from the Major.

He muses on John’s eccentricities as he dresses. On away missions the man will wake, alert and oriented at the slightest ruffle of fabric, the softest whisper, or the distant sound of a snapping twig. Curled up in Cam’s bed, however, (and now that he thinks back to the few times he’s crashed on John’s couch) the man can sleep. Cam’s witnessed John’s unique ability to snooze, crash on anything or anyone (to which Vala can attest). Cam gets it, those are his people too, his team, and John is fiercely loyal and maybe a little overprotective sometimes.

“Team leader,” Cam has to remind John sometimes with a wave his hand at himself, which usually earns him an irritated scowl and a look that says clearly that John couldn’t care less if they crowned him King he still doesn’t like whatever terrible idea they’ve concocted to put Cam’s life in jeopardy over John’s. Self-sacrificing gnat is a pain in the ass sometimes, Cam thinks, staring at the back of John’s head.

He remembers when everyone told him that, back when he flipped Sheppard’s file open and ran his fingers across the name, because he hadn’t thought of John Sheppard in years, and everyone gave him looks like he was crazy, questioning him. “You know what Sheppard did right?” “You know how Sheppard ended up here, right?” “Shouldn’t have given that kind of disobedience a second chance.” “Shoulda been court martialed.”

Cam remembered John Sheppard at twenty with the slouch, and the smirk, and the hair and then John was standing in front of Cam in an SG-1 uniform, his hip canted and arms crossed and a grin on his face like ‘where do I sign?’ and his hair in messy spikes across his forehead.

Before Teal’c and Daniel and Sam rejoined SG-1, John and Cam kind of got into a habit of saving each other’s asses. They never really felt like outsiders, not on purpose anyway, but old SG-1 had nearly nine years to form that bond between them, and Vala, well she’s sort of like a puppy, Cam thinks, bouncing back and forth between everyone like she’s starved for attention. There are the inevitable inside jokes, references to missions that Cam’s read, which Cam gets and explains to John but it isn’t the same, not really. And they share mannerisms, words, phrases that have them nearly in tears, and Vala laughs along like she knows exactly what’s going on and Cam and John watch fondly amused but unable to participate. But he and John have their own language in sports and flying; their own jokes in bad sci-fi and movie nights with exploding microwaves when accidentally nuking tin foil; and their own missions for reminiscing. It’s easy to get close to someone when they’d die for you and you for them.

Cam thinks that’s why they’re always pushed together; and he’s back to John’s sleeping form because no matter the mission John and Cam always share quarters, or are lumped together in a tent. It makes sense, Cam guesses. Sam and Vala usually skip off holding hands to talk about cucumber masks and lingerie or something, that is, when Vala hasn’t managed to snag Daniel’s hand to pull him off to discuss catalogs and the culturally correct use of someone else’s credit card, respectively. Which usually leaves four, staring at each other wondering who should pair off with whom. It is usually at this point that Teal’c stares at Cam and John with a look on his face Cam once saw on a grizzly bear that plainly dares either of them to suggest his company.

Cam can pin point the exact moment Teal’c lost what little patience he had for the ‘intellectually underdeveloped men of the Tau’ri’. It wasn’t even a mission, really, but a mandatory meeting with the IOA in Washington D.C. Two rooms between the six of them and Vala, Sam and Daniel were in one room, Teal’c, John, and Cam in the room next door. The evening started with John dumping his suitcase on one bed, and Cam, his on the other, and Teal’c staring him down until Cam picked his suitcase up and dumped it next to John’s. The evening ended with a heated discussion of the 69’ Mustang versus the ’65 Firebird, with John and Cam crammed into the queen sized bed together, gesticulating wildly and whispering in not so hushed tones to the point of wearing their voices raw with the hissing match.

“What is that?” John had asked suddenly, “it sounds like a dog…” he pushed a hand into Cam’s face to stop his talking and Cam licked at his fingers until John disgustedly removed them, flicking Cam in the forehead for good measure.

“Yeah…what is that?” Cam had said, hearing the low throaty, nasally growl that John had heard. Cam clapped twice and the lights flickered on. Both men screamed and jumped a foot, bumping into each other. Teal’c stared down at them from beside the bed, a look of homicidal rage etched into his features. No one said anything as Teal’c turned and grabbed a pillow, pulled his blanket off the bed and walked out the door, closing it softly behind him.

He never returned.

Cam makes his way down the stairs, grinning.

“What is it?” His mother asks, her own lips twitching up at the grin on her son’s face. Cam shakes his head trying to get John’s petrified look and the feel of his hand clutched around Cam’s bicep out of his mind.

“Nothing Ma,” Cam says, stifling his laugh, “did you need me for something?” He asks, snagging a strip of bacon off the plate on the table.

“Yeah hon, I need you to pick a few things up from the grocery this morning before the hoard of hungry Mitchells come stampeding for breakfast.” Cam nods.

“Sure,” he says, before he remembers. The tattoo on his wrist twinges a bit and he looks down at it peeking out from the sleeve of his shirt: blue.

“I can’t ma,” Cam says, fishing for an explanation.

“And why not Cameron?” She asks, one hand on her hip and staring up at him in disapproval. He ducks his head.

“I need…well Sheppard he…” Cam stutters, wow how has he managed not to get himself killed off world before now? _‘I’m ready to be conveniently beamed up Odyssey_ ’ he thinks staring at his mother.

“Oh, stop Cameron, John is a grown man he’ll be fine the whole half hour it’ll take for you to pick a few things up from the store! He’s not even awake yet!” His mother reprimands, pointing to the door.

“But…I really—classified,” he tries, as his mother shoos him out of the kitchen.

Which is how Cam finds himself in his Mustang, with a grocery list clutched in his hand, staring up at his bedroom window uncertainly. _It is only a few things…he is asleep_. He remembers when Vala and Daniel were bonded by the Goa’uld bracelets; it took about forty-five minutes before it affected either of them. His mother’s face appears at the kitchen window to glare at him. He starts the car and vows to drive fast.

Twenty minutes later he’s tapping his foot impatiently behind Mrs. Johnson, his now eighty-year old first grade teacher as she unloads her shopping cart one item at a time. He keeps checking his wrist, hoping no one notices the lack of a watch, staring instead at the tattoo, slowly growing darker and darker: grey (anxious). Mrs. Johnson finishes unloading her cart, the bagger reloading as she struggles to get out her check book. Another glance: darker grey, darker, darker, black (very anxious, stressed, tense).

As he pays for his few items he starts to feel it now, pressure building up in his head, nervousness in his stomach, growing light headed. His phone vibrates in his pocket and he slides it out, flips it open as he grabs the two bags.

“Ma?” He asks, fearing the worst.

“Cameron? Hon, you need to come home,” his mother’s voice is a little urgent, the worry in it obvious.

“Sheppard, what’s wrong?” Cam asks, already heading out the door.

“How’d…he’s sick, I asked him if he needed me to call Doctor Harris but he said no, he—“

“I’m on my way, tell him I’ll be right there.” Cameron hangs up before his mother can finish her sentence, tossing the groceries into the passenger’s seat and pulling out of the parking lot before he even has a chance to buckle his seatbelt.

When he gets home, his mother grabs his arms.

“He came down stairs a little while ago looking like death Cameron, he asked where you were. I told him you went to run an errand for me,” his mother is looking at him guilty. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I uh…where is he?” Cam asks, putting the grocery bags on the table. She points up the stairs. Cam nods and heads for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“Sheppard?” Cam shouts, bursting into his bedroom. John is sitting hunched over on the cot, clutching his head. Cam crosses the room and drops to his knees beside him, grabbing at his hands and replacing them with his own. “Shit, Sheppard. I’m sorry.”

“S’alright, m’fine,” John says shaking his head, but he stops quickly, paling further. “Fuck,” he hisses pushing Cam away and trying to stand, collapsing instead on to all fours snatching the wastebasket by Cam’s desk just in time to retch into it.

“C’mere,” Cam says softly, when John seems to be done for the moment, his face red and blotchy, his hair clinging to his sweat slicked face. He helps John to his feet, throws an arm around his shoulder, the other clutching his waist, John clings to him, falling against him as Cam helps him down the hall and into the bathroom. He positions John in front of the toilet and rubs at his back a little awkwardly when John gets sick again.

John doesn’t look at him when he pulls back away from the toilet, stares down at his trembling hands instead. Cam grabs a paper towel off of the sink and hands it to him, John wipes at his mouth and flushes the toilet, standing on shaky legs.

“Here,” Cam says, reaching for a bottle of mouth wash and pouring a small amount into a Dixie cup. John swirls it around his mouth and spits it into the sink, washing the green liquid away down the drain and splashing water onto his flushed face. Cam doesn’t need empathic abilities to read the humiliation John’s feeling.

“I hate puking.” Cam says, “I always feel like it should be followed by crying and screaming for my mama,” Cam confesses, truthfully. John’s lip quirks up in a smirk and he allows Cam to lead him back to his bedroom. “You need to lie down.” John, for the first time in history doesn’t argue with Cam, just lets Cam push him back against his bed.

Cam grabs the wastebasket and brings it into the bathroom to clean out. When he comes back he has a cold wet wash cloth in his hand and he places it gently over John’s forehead. Then he moves the fan in the corner of his room closer, turns it on low, and positions it so it’s blowing gently across John’s hot skin. John doesn’t say anything as Cam does this, keeps his eyes closed and his whole body still, lying on his back. Cam pulls the shades down on his window in case John’s photosensitive.

“Take this,” Cam says, pushing a glass of water into John’s hand and John sits up enough to take the two pills Cam hands him. “Doctor Lam gave it to me to give to you in case one of us did something stupid. It’s vicodin,” Cam says watching John swallow the pain medication.

Cam feels like shit. He hovers at the edge of the bed and wonders if he should just leave John be and go down stairs to try and make up some excuse for this. But instead he walks toward the bed, kicks off his shoes and sits down beside John.

“You don’t have to stay you know, I think I’ll be fine.” John says.

“I am so sorry Sheppard. My ma…she was all…and I’m a really terrible liar.” Cam explains; John smirks, like he agrees and Cam smiles.

“I’ll be fine, Cam,” John tries to reassure him but Cam shakes his head, even though John can’t see it.

“Maybe the proximity will make you get better faster.”

“Maybe,” John sighs like he’s too tired to argue. Cam settles in beside him. The bed is way too small for two grown men and Cam can either hang off one edge, or scoot closer to John. John is still, his arms dropped by his sides on the mattress beneath them. Cam moves experimentally closer, sliding in the smallest of increments, giving John time to protest, or his body language to tell Cam ‘okay there’s good’. But John doesn’t move, so Cam edges close until their bodies are barely grazing, Cam’s thigh by John’s side, and his hip by John’s head; John feels hot.

Cam looks down at his wrist in the meager light, watching as the symbol starts fading to a pale yellow. Cam slides the small card out of his pocket, where it’s been tucked since he first found it. His eyes skim down to the little label: unsettled, mixed emotions. 

Cam folds his arms across his chest and closes his eyes, intending to sit still and quiet until John feels well enough to venture down stairs.

Creak.

Cam’s eyes flutter open, he looks up from the bed, but there’s nothing there, the room is empty, the door ajar. He yawns, his eyes falling shut, his head gently collapsing back against the pillow before he takes in his surroundings. The fan is blowing cool air across his shoulder, and he cuddles closer to the warmth in front of him instinctually, his arms tucked in front of him. He opens his eyes again, realization hitting him. He’s pressed against John’s back, one of his legs tangled between John’s, his face practically buried in the back of John’s hair.

He tenses, doesn’t move, trying not to stir John awake. He’s fairly certain John was privy to his jerk off session, the last thing he needs is for John to wake up with his ass fit snug against Cam’s crotch. Cam starts to back away, sliding his leg out carefully when John stirs.

“Hey Sheppard, how’re you feelin’?” Cam asks, a little enthusiastically.

“Are you spooning me?” John asks uncertain, freezing.

“Uhm,” says Cam. “Not on purpose.” He expects John to get up, or maybe move away or push him off or something. Instead he flips over onto his stomach and buries his face into his pillow, his arms reaching beneath it to hug it to his face and chest. Cam rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. He feels…content. More than that, he feels…like his stomach has turned into cotton candy. He stares at the back of John’s head. Does John’s stomach feel like cotton candy? Does he feel…light…and happy? Cam is overcome with the desire to reach out and touch. He curls his hand into a fist and presses it into his side.

“I love vicodin,” John says, and Cam is pretty sure his voice just went up a little at the end on a giggle. He relaxes back into the sheets. Drugs. Right.

“Feelin’ pretty good over there buddy?”

“I dreamt I was almost eaten by a whale,” John explains.

“Almost?”

“Ate the clown instead,” and John is definitely laughing now, into Cam’s pillow.

“You are fucked up Sheppard,” Cam tells him, in all seriousness, punching him lightly on the back with his knuckles, leaving his arm draped there.

“So they tell me,” John sighs, his head turning on the pillow, and now he’s staring at Cam, peeking through the curtain of his hair splayed across his forehead, out from underneath his lashes, and above the ridge of his arm.

“Do you remember when we were at the Academy together?” John asks. Cam stares at him, pausing, before he nods. John doesn’t say anything else.

“What about it?” Cam asks, prompting him to continue.

“What? Oh…nothing. I just wanted to know if you remembered,” John says with a shrug.

“You thought I’d forget?” Cam smirks, and John shrugs. “You’re pretty memorable Sheppard.”

“S’what your mom said.” Cam rolls his eyes and John laughs. They fall silent then, Cam with his hand across John’s back, absently stroking along Sheppard’s spine with his knuckles. John’s eyes fall shut, his breath evening out until Cam thinks he’s asleep.

“Why’d you ask me to join SG-1?” It takes a minute for Cam to process the mumbled words muffled by Sheppard’s arm and longer to process the answer. An answer he doesn’t really have because truthfully?

“I don’t know.” Cam tells him, letting his hand fall still against the warmth seeping through the thin t-shirt on John’s back.

“But everyone told you right?” John asks, and he doesn’t need to explain any further but he says, quietly, “’bout Afghanistan.” Cam turns on his side to face John, his arm bent at an awkward angle now so he slides it across John’s back, down his side to tuck it into himself.

“Yeah.”

“So why?” John asks. “Why’d you choose me, after what I did?” Cam cocks his head and stares at John.

“Because of what you did.”

“Disobey—“

“John.” John falls silent. “You didn’t leave your men behind.” Cam’s tone is clipped.

“Might as well have, for all the good—“

“When I crashed,” Cam interrupts, clearing his throat. “I remember thinking, this is it. I remember remembering everything I’ve never wanted to forget. My mom’s cooking, my dad teaching me how to drive the summer I turned fourteen, my dog, learning about the Stargate Program, flying for the first time…” Cam trails off staring at a spot somewhere to John’s right.

“I know what it feels like…wondering who’s coming for you.” Cam’s fingers are toying with the edge of John’s t-shirt, and he can see a strip of pale skin above the waistband of his jeans. He’s staring at it, avoiding John’s penetrating gaze, and his cock is stirring in his jeans and his hand is moving forward, to stroke the sleep warm skin of Sheppard’s stomach.

“John,” he whispers. But John is rolling over away from him, standing up quickly, tripping over the cot by the bed, and dodging out the door, mumbling incoherently about feeling better. Cam turns on his back, clamps a hand over his eyes and slams a fist into the mattress beneath him. He curls one leg up on the bed, his foot flat against the mattress, one hand moving to press against the hardness against his thigh.

“Fuck. What the fuck.” He rolls over on his stomach, shouting into his pillow.  



	4. Repulsion

John is twenty again, with this thing for Cameron Mitchell creeping past all of his defenses. It’s not as though he was holding a torch for Cam all this time. Not like he didn’t get over his stupid crush when he made the decision not to jeopardize his chance to escape.

The thought of having to add just one more thing to the list of John Sheppard’s disappointments, of having to go home and having no choice but to walk down that pre-ordained path, the road to redemption…it was enough to quell that ache. That need.

He had never seen his father happier than when he brought Nancy home that first time; the pretty, intelligent, charming girl on his elbow who came from the right family, and had the right education, was ambitious, and who said all of the right things. John had loved her in his own right, cared about her, enough to walk away. It wasn’t like they weren’t both using each other anyway.

But this thing with Cam is like walking through the gate for the first time; so unbelievably terrifying. This thing, bigger, bigger then you expect it to be, staring at you with a promise, a dare. Walking up that ramp, John remembers the way it vibrated beneath his feet, a hum that sent tremors through him as he walked, an electrical buzz, a pulse, like the gate had a heartbeat, like it was the mouth of a beast with the will to devour.

And he remembers O’Neill the first time they met, back when John was staring down the barrel of a court martial, and O’Neill had said ‘well I think people who don’t want to go through the gate are as equally whacked’ and John had never thought he’d give up flying for anything. But then here he was, that same feeling twisting his guts, and the ghost of Cam’s fingertips scorching the skin of stomach.

“John? Are you alright?” Kara’s voice cuts through his thoughts and John’s head snaps up to stare into her concerned eyes. He nods and smiles, but he thinks he does a pretty poor job of it because she’s looking at him with even more worry.

“Feeling sick,” he says, which isn’t really a lie considering he spent the morning revisiting last night’s dinner.

“I heard, better now?” She asks, walking towards him. He’s leaning over the wooden split rail fence surrounding the spacious back yard, one foot propped up on the heavy plank.

“Not especially,” he confesses. She comes to stand beside him, leaning against the fence on her arms and staring out at the yard.

“Want to talk about it?” She asks softly, not looking at him.

“Yeah,” John says, after a pause. She waits until it’s obvious he’s not going to say anything else.

“But you aren’t going to,” Kara says.

“No.”

“Men,” she sighs, long suffering, but her voice is light and there’s a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth that tells John she gets it.

John hates thinking about the past, locks it up behind a bulkhead door and wills himself to forget the code. But here, he remembers.

The first time he looked at Cam and saw more than the potential for a good lay they were walking back late one night from a football game. The two of them, sandwiched between a group of mutual friends riding a high from a well earned victory they could feel in every muscle stretched from grinning and cheering and hugs that felt a little more like excuses to bruise. It was late fall and the air was cool in the dark with a wind that rattled the windows on the science building as they walked. John remembers Cameron’s bare arm brushing against his and the way his hands were clasped around himself as he shivered. John remembers his fingers grasping the USAFA sweatshirt tied loose around his hips, and pulling it off, pressing it to Cam’s chest.

“Take it. I’m getting cold just looking at you,” John scowled and Cam took the sweatshirt gratefully and pulled it over his head, hood falling over his face so only his smirk could be seen peeking out through the curtain of John’s shirt.

“Thanks mom,” Cam had teased. He shivered dramatically and left his arms wrapped around himself, the empty sleeves of the sweatshirt dangling at his side. John’s friends were laughing around him and Cam was walking with his head down, staring at the concrete beneath his sneakers. John wanted to wrap himself around Cam from behind, rub his hands up and down Cam’s arms until he stopped shivering and his shoulders went still beneath him.

And sex was sex. Sex was about filling a need, a means to an end, getting off. But this, this was something new, something entirely different, and terrifying, this need to make Cam grin easy and real, to make him warm, and warm was safety and comfort and protection and there was a lightness in John’s stomach he associated with things like the flashing lights and the wind cool and clean at the peak of a Ferris Wheel, and the high of a good day of surfing. And those were feelings, emotions, and they were messy and complicated and John didn’t do didn’t deal and so he stopped, or he tried, but it was hard with sweet sharp scent of Cam’s shampoo lingering in the cotton and if John maybe breathed it in with his eyes closed tight when Holland left their tiny dorm to brush his teeth, well, it was all just temporary anyway.

“Earth to John.” John jumped, startled, turning to look at Kara, her blue eyes bright in the sunlight. They looked eerily like Cam’s.

“Sorry, spacing out.”

“I noticed.” She doesn’t say anything for a long pause, she turns away from John, leaning against the rail of the fence, her arms draped over the posts and stares at the side of the house.

“I know I’m a little biased and everything,” she starts finally, not looking at John. “But after my mom died, and I came to stay here for awhile. Cam was really protective. He’s like that, you know?” She says, and she doesn’t have to because John’s seen Cam take a bullet in the shoulder for him, to offer himself for the release of his team, give his life as collateral.

“When he cares about someone, they know it.”

 

***

Cam does a fairly decent job avoiding nearly everyone for most for the day. With the wedding ceremony and reception taking place in the backyard there’s plenty to busy himself with. He helps his brother unload the truck storing all of the tables and chairs and watches his younger cousins string flowers from the rented gazebo.

In the late afternoon he hangs in the doorway to the living room eating half a tuna sandwich and watches the younger kids all piled around the television eating PB&Js. John is sitting with Becca in his lap, her hands sticky with jelly and peanut butter smeared up the side of her face. John swipes at her cheek with a napkin, grinning. She’s talking to him, Cam can’t tell what she’s saying but John is listening with rapt attention.

His fingers are combing through Becca’s hair, and Cam nearly chokes on his sandwich when John starts absently braiding it, poorly, Cam thinks, grinning. By the time Cam takes his last bite, two more of his cousins are tucked into John’s side, half asleep. John has this thing about kids, he pretends like he doesn’t like them much, but kids love him. Especially girls, of any age and variety Cam grins, Becca looks at the two boys curled up beside John and tugs on his shirt to capture his attention.

But John is good with kids too. Cam remembers a few years ago getting caught up in the affairs of a planet with an active slave trade. None of them were exactly in support of the practice but there wasn’t much SG-1 could or had the authority to do, until a young woman caught them at the Stargate. She was nearly inconsolable, and she pushed a torn photograph into John’s hands of a young dark haired girl and cried that it was her daughter and she had been kidnapped.

“It’s kids,” Sheppard had said to Cam and maybe what they did wasn’t exactly by the book, but nothing they ever did was but four young children were safe today. They hid at night during a terrible thunderstorm in a cave in the mountains by the village and Shawna, the little brunette girl clung to John, cowering at every clap of thunder while John sang Johnny Cash and held her close.

Cam’s gaze flicks away from John to the opposite doorway, where his mother is watching him, and Cam’s smile he hadn’t realized he had, falters slightly as she disappears back into the kitchen. Cam spares a last glance at Sheppard before following his mother. She’s standing with her back to him, busy at the counter. Cam leans back against the wall beside the door and says nothing.

“I’ve always been a worrier Cameron, you know that,” his mother says finally. Cam makes a noncommittal grunt and when she turns to him he straightens and nods his head.

“Yeah, Ma, I know.”

“Don’t know what it is you do Cam, always knew it was dangerous and after your accident…well—“ She pauses, wiping her hands on her apron and looking at him. “I’m just glad I know someone is looking after you for me.” She smiles at him, Cam ducks his head, staring at his sneakers.

“He’s a very nice man Cameron.” When Cam looks up his mother is staring at him, hard, and Cam feels his face flush, wondering what that means.

“Uh, yeah,” Cam stutters, “I. Yeah, he is.”

“Good,” his mother smiles patting him on the shoulder, like that settles it; settles what, Cam has no idea.

Cam has always been attracted to John, an appreciation that’s always sort of just been there, a persistent thread of tension woven through him. But it’s never been this…potent. It’s like being back in his wheelchair right after his accident, before the PT really started to make a difference. He’d visit his friends on base, with them in their uniforms gearing up to take off and Cam stuck, immobile, legless, powerless, flightless. So close to everything he’s ever wanted but not able to take it, to just watch it all fly further and further away.

There’s been moments, Cam thinks, in their history, when the consequences didn’t seem so significant and Cam thought, maybe, but he wasn’t ever even sure how John felt about…well anything. Back at the Academy it happened for the first time. God, Cam thinks, John was so gorgeous back then, young and invincible (John liked to think so). He remembers the football game, euphoria thrumming beneath his skin, frozen in the fall air, and John’s sweatshirt warm and soft. He’d liked John back then, and he let himself fantasize on the way back to the dorms about what might happen if he forgot to give the sweatshirt back. If maybe he used it as an excuse to return later, maybe sometime when Holland was out and they could be alone, and it would be so cliché and he’d be all “I forgot to give this back” grateful and earnest, and John would invite him in and then Cam wasn’t sure what next but it usually involved a big gay romance.

But Cam wasn’t exactly an expert on big gay romances and he slipped the sweatshirt into John’s hands with a “thanks” and a smile and John never really hung out with them much after that. And now it feels the same, here. Because back then Cam thought he saw in John potential, the way John would sometimes look at him like he wanted something, like he was offering something but Cam was never really sure how these things worked and it was all a little too risky anyway.

And now Cam’s not sure what’s happening between them, because he thinks John’s hot yeah, but this is so beyond that, this is teenage horniness times infinity and the fact that Cam is thinking things like ‘times infinity’ is really just a testament to how fucked up he feels. And the only thing that’s changed is this bond, but what does that even mean? Because he’s some kind of empath, okay, but does that mean that this…ache pressing against his ribcage, settled in his stomach, throbbing in his groin, is John’s?

If it is? What then.

If it’s not? What’s worse?

 

***

Things feel irreparably tense between John and Cam. John barely looks at Cam all through dinner, relies instead on the boisterous family discussions to shield him from direct contact with Mitchell. Kara is telling him about her job as a kindergarten teacher.

“There’s this kid, Tommy, you guys would get on so well,” she laughs. John raises a brow.

“Yeah?”

“Is that the kid you says flirts with all the teachers?” Cam asks.

“How can a five year old flirt?” John questions.

“Yes,” Kara smirks. “He draws us all pictures, and he tries to share his pudding cup with me almost every day.”

“I can see why you think they’d get along,” Cam says, and it’s the first time John is able to look at him without wanting to run and hide. He smirks and Kara bumps him with her shoulder.

“He also has an unhealthy obsession with fighter jets.”

“Good.” John and Cam say at the same time, ducking their heads and grinning.

“When are the boys arriving?” Wendy asks, suddenly, turning to Cam. Cam leans back to get a better look at the kitchen clock and shrugs.

“They said around nine.”

“What?” John asks, and Kara rolls her eyes in Cam’s direction.

“Oh shi—oot,” Cam amends, avoiding his mother’s gaze, “I forgot to tell you about the bachelor party.”

“What bachelor party?” John asks.

“The one tonight,” Cam says, he smiles before standing and grabbing his empty plate and heading into the kitchen.

“You know,” John says, rising and following with his own, “everyone tells me how bad my communication skills are but you really take the cake sometimes.”

“Oh bite me Shep.” Cam snarks, dropping his plate into the sink and turning towards John. He leans back against the counter and crosses his arms. John smirks and moves to stand in front of him, sliding his own plate carefully on top of Cam’s.

“Yeah? Where?” John asks, voice light. Cam pauses.

“Where—“ Cam starts, leaning in a fraction. John hears footsteps and he steps back, turning as Kara comes bounding into the kitchen.

“You were wrong! They’re here—“she stops when she sees them. John is leaning with his hip against the counter, one hand in the pocket of his jeans one arm bracing himself against the sink. She smirks, and starts walking backwards until she slips back into the dining room.

Cam turns his head slightly, opens his mouth like he’s about to say something before closing it with a snap and pushing away from the counter. John trails after him, out into the front hall. Cam pushes the screen door open, and steps out onto the porch.

“Chris!” Cam laughs, pulling one of the six men standing on the front porch into a hug. “John! This is the lucky groom.” John smiles politely, and goes through another round of introductions. Cam is reminiscing before he’s even finished, his hand clamped around one of the groomsmen’s shoulders and laughing so hard there are tears brimming in his eyes.

“Hey,” John says smiling at the last of the group. “John, Sheppard,” he says, holding his hand out, left to make his own introductions.

“Ryan Waters,” the other man says, taking John’s hand in his own and shaking firmly. He has pale blue and gray eyes and a mess of dark hair, his skin is alabaster and John thinks he looks a little like an alien race they met once on a planet on the outskirts of the Milky Way.

“What?” Ryan asks with a grin.

“Uh…look familiar’s all,” John says, quirking a grin.

“Right,” Ryan ducks his head and looks back up, like he doesn’t quite believe him. John stares for a second longer and Ryan flushes, turning away to say hi to Cam.

He glances back a couple of times to John.

 

***

The club where they end up would, in John’s opinion, be the perfect cover page for a pamphlet on the Postmodern Apocalypse. It is as though someone has rifled through the best of the worst in Vegas strip clubs, and chosen pell-mell only the gaudiest of aesthetics.

The carpet is brightly patterned but barely discernable in the darkness, the only light sources crude sconces lining the walls, the neon fluorescents of the stage and the various black lit table lamps. That John’s first reaction is an assessment of Pandora’s architectural details while the rest of the group stares enraptured by the topless dancers, doesn’t escape John. He pulls out a wad of ones like it’s a security pass to a secret facility.

“Who’s buying the first round?” He asks.

***

Cam’s gotten drunk with John (and gotten John drunk) enough to know John’s nearing the peak of his buzz. His face is flushed high on his cheekbones, the bottle of beer held in a loose fist and his whole body in a lazy sprawl in his chair.

He’s also been around John enough (and even without the persistent twitch in his wrist) to know when John is faking the easy release of tension in his limbs. And John is tense. The slight, involuntary stutter of his leg as it bounces almost imperceptibly, the drum solo he plays against his thigh with his thumb and pinky, back and forth, back and forth, hidden at his side.

***

John’s been flirting with a girl named Carmen since he first arrived. He thinks she’s a stripper until she sits with a grin in his lap and tells him,

“luckily for you I’m not,” with a coy smirk. He leans back in his chair, and she holds his shoulder to steady herself.

“Why’s that?” John asks, voice low, and he’s aware of the way Cam goes still beside him.

“You’re not allowed to touch the dancers,” and her hand disappears from his shoulder to grip at his thighs while she straddles him. The group all ‘oohs’ as one, like the soundtrack to a bad sitcom and John fights the urge to push her away. He catches Cam’s eye, who is looking not at the expanse of Carmen’s smooth exposed brown skin, as most of the men in the vicinity are, but at John and his lips, quirked up into a smirk. John leans in just an inch further and says,

“The ratio is a little uneven though don’t you think?” Gesturing with his eyes between Carmen and the rest of the group. She grins at him.

“Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t come alone then, isn’t?”

Which is how they all end up in Ryan’s living room a half an hour later, with John unsure how or why he orchestrated this display of the heterosexual male fantasy.

Carmen doesn’t leave John’s lap, her grin a little wild as she moves on top of him. As her hands move up and down his chest she fingers at the hard shape of his dog tags beneath his t-shirt. Curiously she pulls them out and her grin goes even wider.

“Major John Sheppard,” She laughs, “you a marine?” She grins, half the room winces and John snorts at the outraged look on Cam’s face.

“Air force. Pilot,” John says, smirking at her, she’s too drunk to notice it doesn’t quite match the one she’s giving him and she leans in to kiss his neck.

“You know Cam here, he’s a Lieutenant Colonel,” someone says and Carmen sits up, giving John a wink before pulling away from him with a coy smirk to move towards Cam.

“Really?” She says, with a grin. He nods, unsure as she slides onto his lap straddling him, slender legs on either side of his hips. Cam looks a little too skittish for John to be properly envious of her. Then Cam’s eyes flicker to Carmen’s chest as she moves forward, until Cam’s face is an inch away from the swell of her breasts above the tight corset top she’s wearing.

She arches her back slightly and Cam’s hand comes up to steady her, large hand splayed across her spine, the other falling against her thigh. Cam’s eyes flick to John’s as his tongue darts out to lick at her breasts, flash of teeth nipping at the skin and the noise Carmen makes is real, a soft happy sounding whimper of approval. Her hand’s come down to pull at the string of the top until it’s loose and coming apart and Cam helps it fall away, his eyes never leaving John’s.

John stares at Cam, his arms draped over the arm of his chair, scooting lower in the seat to let his legs fall open. John tears his gaze away from Cam’s to watch as Carmen stands and turns collapsing back against Cam, her head falling against his shoulder, topless.

 “I can’t believe this is happening,” one of the groomsmen says, but John doesn’t turn to see which.

“I can’t believe we’re watching,” says another one.

“Shut up,” Ryan hisses.

Carmen hooks her arm around Cam’s head and John watches as Cam’s dog tags slide out from his t-shirt, Carmen pulls them over her own head, the metal tags resting between her breasts. She’s grinning like she’s won some kind of prize, and something low and hot stirs in John’s stomach that has little to do with the ache of his dick.

His wrist twinges painfully, the skin around the tattoo is red when he looks, the sleek lines of the symbol glowing bright orange.

 

***

Carmen tugs on Cam’s hands until Cam is cupping her left breast, the other on her hip to keep her steady as she starts gyrating against him. Carmen is hot, her skin tan and smooth, warm beneath his hands. He’s never had a lap dance before, although there was that one time at prom when Mark Hemmer tried to give him one in a cramped limo but ended up puking into the empty ice bucket instead. Cam thinks this whole thing might be kind of hot if it weren’t for the fact that he was sitting in a room with a bunch of guys staring at Carmen, and willing his erection to go away.

He also thinks it would be a lot more enjoyable if maybe he could stop staring at Sheppard. John is watching him, his hands, his thighs, his chest, his lips and eyes, Cam doesn’t think he’s even looked once at Carmen. Except…except when she’d taken his dog tags, and Cam’s never really had a military kink before (thankfully) but all the other guys are staring at them like she’s G.I Jane or something, and he wonders what Sheppard would look like in her place.

The skin on his wrist twitches and out of the corner of his eye he can see it glow a deep velvety red, he doesn’t need a mood ring to tell him it means ‘pissed off’ because Sheppard’s eyes are hard, and a little cold. He’s staring at Carmen with a predatory look in his eyes, but it doesn’t match the others’, who are staring at Carmen like they’d enjoy nothing more than beating Cam over the head with a large club and carrying her back off to the man cave. But John is staring at Carmen like she’s dared tread into his territory.

 

***

“Hey,” Cam says, eyes glazed and voice low and rough. His hands come up to land gently against the skin of Carmen’s hips. He starts to stand, rising just an inch off the chair, coercing her to move. John watches as Carmen gives a fake little moan, not quite getting the subtle message as she grinds her hips down against Cam. Cam stills beneath her, mouth parting and breath hitching. John shifts in his seat as he watches.

“Uh…groom,” Cam says, a little distracted, pointing at Chris across the room. Carmen turns her head and gives Chris a predatory grin and Chris flushes as she rises and heads toward him. John’s lip twitches as Cam removes the dog tags from around Carmen’s neck and slips them back on over his own, tucking them into his t-shirt. John watches Cam dart around the coffee table towards the foyer and the front door. His shirt is rumpled, his face flushed, and mouth obscenely red; with his dick hard in his jeans he looks the epitome of debauched. But it isn’t Carmen that Cam glances back at for a fraction of a second before he disappears out the front door.

John stands slowly, and follows Cam out a short pace behind him. Cam is standing with his back to the door, his hands splayed across his hips, as he stares out towards the street. Tall trees line the edge of the long drive, casting the small house into deep shadows, blocking the light of the street lamps, and the moon overhead.

John walks slowly up behind Cam, and not for the first time he is struck with the pulsing need to envelop Cam from behind. He stopped himself that first time, with the irrationality of a barely not teenager no less, and here, as an adult he feels like he has regressed, gotten reckless. He steps up behind Cam, so close his own cock twitches in his jeans and Cam’s breath stops. John ducks his head forward until his nose brushes the hair at the back of Cam’s head and like a sense memory John is overwhelmed by the sickly sweet scent of Cam.

John’s hands move between Cam’s arms, still attached to his hip. His fingers span across Cam’s side, tucked beneath Cam’s ribcage. John’s fingers start to travel and all the wrongbadno screaming in his head he suppresses beneath the Godpleaseyes as his fingers fan across Cam’s thigh, his fingertips barely brushing the hard line of his dick through denim.

Cam’s hand comes crashing into John’s, stopping him, his fist closing tight around his fingers. Cam pushes him away roughly and he turns around. His pupils are blown, his eyes wide and clear with confusion as he shakes his head and stutters an,

“‘M’sorry.”

John doesn’t say anything, just closes his hand into a fist and backs a few feet up, waiting for Cam to say something else, to shake his head and tell him to stop, to reach out and pull him back. He doesn’t. So John turns around and heads back into the house where Carmen is still gyrating on Chris’s lap while a crowd of drunken men cheer.

When he looks up he sees Ryan on the stairs in front of him. Ryan stares at him without saying anything, just a long devious look before he turns and starts up the stairs, his eyes never leaving John’s until he disappears around the landing.

John’s cock is still hard.

He doesn’t know what Cam wants. What Ryan is offering is obvious; so he follows him up the stairs.

 

***

Cam paces back and forth in the small bathroom, splashing cold water across his flushed face. He suppresses the desire to climb into the shower and turn the water on as cold as it can go.

“You are his commanding officer,” he hisses at his reflection, his fingers gripping the edges of the porcelain sink. “The top of a very very long list why this can never fucking happen,” he tells himself harshly. His cock is starting to soften, and then he thinks of John’s hands on the insides of his thigh and allows the thought of what would have come next to pass through his mind and his dick twitches.

He undoes his jeans, slowly, the feel of John’s hand still clear in his mind as he wills the feel of his own away, imagines John’s longer thinner fingers there instead, popping the button on his jeans, deftly making quick work of the zipper. His dick jerks and he moans, his knees go weak and,

“The fuck’s that?” He hisses to himself. He turns and collapses against the closed lid of the toilet and pushes a hand firm against his cock. He slides a hand inside his boxer briefs and nearly comes before he has a chance to wrap a messy fist around himself.

He hasn’t felt anything so intense since the first time he had another’s hand on his dick, his first sloppy hand job in the back row of a nearly empty movie theater when he was fourteen.

“Christ sake,” he hisses. He’s 37 years old, it shouldn’t feel like this. Well it should, he laughs, breathy and desperate, tugging on his dick, but it isn’t and he comes hard with a shout muffled into the crook of his arm as his cock jerks, spilling over his fist inside his boxer briefs. His wrist glows bright red and warm, he stares at it as he comes down, watching it fade to a pale blue Cam knows means ‘calm’ and he has a suspicion ‘sated’ might be another apt adjective.

He stares down at the stain covering a very unfortunate portion of his underwear and groans. Cam collapses against the toilet and tries to catch his breath.

“Fuck.”

Cam stands, does up his jeans and winces; instead he pulls them off before rolling the soiled boxers into a ball and burying them at the bottom of Ryan’s trash, hoping no one finds them. He prefers going commando anyway (but with his track record is sort of dangerous).

He hopes what just transpired is unobvious as he steps out of the bathroom and back into the living room. His head is a little clearer in that post orgasmic way.

Cam scans the living room for John but he isn’t there. He doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

“Hey Mark you see Sheppard?” He asks, Cam knows he should go find John, talk about what just happened. He’s not exactly looking forward to the inevitable conversation but he thinks he owes it to John at least.

“Uh yea,” Mark says, a little distracted watching Carmen attached now to the best man. “He went upstairs with Ryan like ten minutes ago.”

“Oh, thanks,” Cam says backing up and turning to walk back the way he came toward the stairs.

“Uh…I wouldn’t…if I were you,” Mark warns with a sideways grin when Cam turns back.

“What? Why?” He asks. Mark stares up at him in disbelief.

“Uhm…just wouldn’t is all,” he says, voice almost teasing. Cam stares at the back of his head for a second before shaking his own and walking towards the stairs. Just wouldn’t is all echoes in his head as he clamps a hand on the railing and he thinks about how hard he came, like the force of two instead of one and the way his wrist lit up. He takes a step back feeling sick and kind of angry.

He decides Mark is right and he steps back into the living room unnoticed and collapses into an arm chair facing the bottom of the stairs. There Cam sits shrouded in the dark, waiting, until Sheppard and Ryan appear at the bottom of the stairs, unabashedly together. Sheppard’s face is flushed, his hair more unruly than ever. Cam’s eyes flick to the mirror behind them, to Ryan’s hand hidden by their bodies, pressed against the hollow of John’s back and the curve of his ass.

It spurs Cam into movement, reflexively jumps out of his seat like he’s been scorched by the leather beneath him. Ryan’s hand drops away from John as Sheppard moves forward into the living room, ignoring Cam’s outburst and Cam altogether as he takes a seat on the old worn out couch. Ryan sits down beside him, far too close, with their thighs pressed together and more than the width of a leg between the arm of the couch and John, but John doesn’t move away, just grabs a bottle of beer off the coffee table and leans back against the couch.

“Bottle opener,” John says, voice rough and lazy, but he doesn’t make a move to look for one, just turns his head slightly to stare at Ryan expectantly. Ryan pulls a bic lighter out of his pocket, and takes the beer from John’s outstretched hand. Ryan pops the cap open and takes a swig before handing the bottle back to John. John turns his head towards Cam and raises his bottle in a mock toast before taking a generous sip.

Cam watches as Ryan pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and light ones, poised between pursed lips. He manages only one drag before John slides the cigarette out of his mouth and Cam watches John’s lips, swollen and red form an O as he tries to blow smoke rings and fails. Ryan bumps his shoulder with a grin and says quietly in his ear,

“didn’t know you smoked.” John opens his mouth to answer on an exhale and coughs. Cam tries not to smirk with smug satisfaction, because he knows Sheppard hates cigarettes. Ryan huffs out a laugh, taking the cigarette from John’s fingers and blowing a messy smoke ring. John smirks, still coughing, taking a too large sip of beer that spills a drop of liquid down his chin. Cam watches, suppressing the instinct to dart forward and swipe it away. He wants to, badly, with a fingertip tickling against Sheppard’s skin, with a gentle press of his tongue tasting beer and smoke and salt.

But he doesn’t, instead he leans even further back in his chair and Sheppard brushes the drop away with the back of his hand his eyes boring into Cam’s.

“Hey we’re gonna put Chris to bed,” Mark says suddenly, breaking the tension between John and Cam. John looks away towards the others who are bent over helping to pull the drunken groom-to-be off the floor. Ryan snuffs out the cigarette on a floral printed coaster and stands up, nodding. Cam watches John as the others are preoccupied, watches John trace the contours of Ryan’s body with his eyes and the inseam of Ryan’s leg with a palm. Cam lets slip a hiss of surprise and indignation as John’s thumb brushes against the crotch of Ryan’s jeans.

John snatches his hand away as the others turn to Cam.

“What?” Mark asks. Cam shakes his head and stands up.

“Yeah, we should head out too,” Cam says, nodding. He plasters a grin across his face and claps Mark on the back, pulling him into a half hug. He turns Chris’s lolling head towards him and kisses him sloppily on the forehead, patting him twice on the cheek and letting his head drop back. “Poor bastard.”

“If he has a hangover for the wedding tomorrow we are all so fucked.”

Cam smirks and nods his agreement, watching the groomsmen pull Chris toward the stairs. Cam doesn’t want to turn around.

“You think they’ll be alright?” Cam asks, turning slightly to the other two men, and nodding in the direction of the would-be-strippers passed out on the opposite side of the room.

“They’ll be fine,” Ryan says.

“We should go.” Cam turns and looks at John. He’s still sitting on the couch, staring up at Ryan and Cam with an expression Cam can’t quite determine, like he’s waiting for something. Cam looks between and them, he’s not sure who John’s waiting for.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you at the car,” John says, taking another sip of his half empty beer bottle. Cam doesn’t move, just stares at them for a second longer, wondering what they’d do if he just refused.

“Kay.” He says finally, turning and walking out the door. The air is cool against his skin, jacket balled up in his hands. He leans against the cold metal of the car and waits. John couldn’t be gone for more than 90 seconds, and Cam wonders what they could have gotten up to in that amount of time. He thinks about what he’d do with 90 seconds of uninterrupted consequence free time with John.

He’s hard by the time John steps out, walks around to the passenger’s side, pulls the door open, and climbs in without a glance toward Cam  



	5. Contrition

John would have classified his and Cam’s relationship at the USAFA as ‘acquaintances,’ and John had fallen for Cam even before he really knew him; which is why he cut ties in the first place. John wasn’t ever that strong willed when it came to his hormones and no one ever had a bad word to say about Cameron Mitchell. Seventeen years between them and John was older, used to disappointments and discretions and a school boy crush seemed so far away.

But his feelings hadn’t changed much in all that time, but John had, he knew, and he’d settled for being Cameron Mitchell’s best friend. He liked that position, it was a good one to fill, and he’d come to terms with the fact that his fantasies, the depraved and the domestic, weren’t ever going to happen. Because Cam, Cam was _Cam_. Back at the Academy John and two other cadets had this fuckbuddy threesome thing going on that John’s pretty certain he saw once in a really terrible military fetish porno, but there weren’t many options open to guys like him, and if you knew who was safe you didn’t really stray. James and Karl had frequent post coital debates concerning cadet preferences. They were always split when it came to Cameron. James purported wholeheartedly that anyone that much of a golden boy had to be straight, Karl on the other hand, said it only proved how far into the proverbial closet he must be. “He’s overcompensating. Maybe he has no idea that he is, but he is so overcompensating.”

Maybe it was John’s penchant for self-destruction but he always sort of agreed with James. He’d seen Cameron with women, heard him talk about women, felt nothing feigned in his reverence for them.

John is hot beneath the sun, material of his suit too thick; sweat collecting at his temples and the back of his neck. He remembers his own wedding, everything felt surreal, like it was supposed to be a fairy tale and it was easy to pretend that it was, they were in love. Nancy wasn’t a beard, not really. When they’d met, Nancy was getting over a messy break up and she and John had become fast friends. She was easy to talk to, and they came from similar backgrounds, so she knew what it was like feeling trapped. Nancy had taken a year off from school right after graduation and travelled through Europe despite her parents’ protests, John thinks that’s what made him fall for her in the first place.

Their relationship wasn’t some big conspiracy, an attempt at a cover up, but John knew he had particular preferences, he just wanted more than anything for Nancy to be enough. John wasn’t with her because he felt he needed to be but because he wanted to. But when his father started pressuring him to get married, to start a family, when Nancy joined the bandwagon, he proposed. At their wedding Nancy had looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, the way her dress caught the light and it sparkled around her; it should have been perfect except the real world was still lying out there and it was getting harder and harder to convince himself he could be satisfied by her.

Nothing is ever okay just because you want it to be. John knew that then, and came to terms with it now. Cam is pressed against him, the small fold up chairs set side by side in too tiny rows. He tries to ignore the feel of Cam’s arm where it meets his own and catches Ryan’s eye. Ryan smirks at him and John returns it, feels Cam tense beside him, because Cam is looking. He has been looking, all morning, at the hurried breakfast they shared before the bride arrived to get ready for the 11:30 ceremony, all through getting dressed together in Cam’s small bedroom.

Everything was simple when John knew his feelings were unrequited. He could deal with his feelings then, suppress them, because Cam’s friendship was more important than anything and everything was better before all of this. Now he knows what Cam feels like beneath his hands, the sound and the force of his orgasm, the way his lips part, red and full, when he’s aroused. John can deal with rejection, the certainty of what will never happen, but this tug of war feels like too much, and he gets being confused, the uncertainty of it all, but he just wants Cam to make up his mind.

He had another dream again last night. The sun and the water and a teenage Cam’s fingers around his cold, wet skin and the feel of his breath on his lips and the anticipation sizzling beneath the surface before he woke, alone and hot in Cam’s bed.

 

***

 

That morning Cam woke from that same reoccurring dream. Disoriented and confused he could still smell the salt, hear the sound of the incoming tide, and feel the brush of John’s lips against his. Getting ready had been stilted and awkward, neither of them saying anything especially important, but John had looked several times like he wanted to say something, but didn’t. So they talked about an episode of _Wife Swap_ they’d seen recently until they were both dressed and ready to head down to the backyard where the guests were already arriving. When Ryan showed up and helped John fix his crooked tie he left them alone in the kitchen hurriedly, and hadn’t said much to either of them since.

Luckily he had a pretty good excuse, and Cam’s grandmother seemed awfully fond of John enough to engage him conversation all through the reception (even managing to get a dance out of him and with the photographic evidence Cam wasn’t going to let him forget being practically groped by a bible thumping ninety year old).

 

Cam looks past Kara’s shoulder to the back door, just in time to see the tailored ends of Sheppard’s jacket disappear inside with Ryan following close behind.

“Scuse me,” Cam says, smiling politely at Kara and patting her on the shoulder as he moves around her.

“Cam?” She questions, confused.

“I’ll be right back,” he throws over his shoulder.

“Cam, don’t,” she says and he turns to see her following, “what are you going to do?” Kara asks, grabbing the handle of the door as Cam reaches for it.

“I’m just going to the bathroom Kara,” Cam says feigning confusion.

“Yea, bullshit Cameron,” Kara says and Cam heaves a sigh and wraps his much larger hand over hers and pushes the door open. Kara struggles with him for a second and Cam stops, afraid of stepping on her bare feet.

“Don’t Cam,” she says, low and serious.

“This doesn’t really concern you,” he tells her, gently coaxing her out of the way.

“I’ve only known John Sheppard for three days and you want to know what I’ve learned about him?” Kara asks, darting in front of him to block the path to the kitchen, where Cam can hear voices. She crosses her arms over her chest, her face is flushed and she has a dangerous spark in her eyes Cameron’s only ever seen on one other woman before: his mother. It alarms him enough to stop.

“John Sheppard is an incredibly good man Cameron—” Kara starts and Cam scoffs, indignantly.

“Yeah—”

“No. I talk. You listen.” Kara snaps. “John is patient—”

“Sheppard?” Cam laughs, but Kara is scowling at him and he snaps his mouth shut.

“Yes. And he’s never going to be able to be…less patient if you don’t figure shit out,” Kara huffs, deflating.

“What?”

“John cares about you Cam, and I don’t think there’s anything you can do to ruin that, but I think if you go in there right now and do what we both know you’re about to do…he won’t forgive you for that. So just think about this Cam.” Kara’s eyes are bright with worry as she stares up at him. Cam looks away, unable to hold her gaze and stares instead at the old hardwood floors beneath his shoes. He wants to say he’s taking the few long seconds that stretch between them to seriously consider her words. But he doesn’t. He sidesteps her, without looking at her and heads for the kitchen.

He doesn’t hear the sound of the back door so he supposes Kara is still standing there, disappointed. He doesn’t turn around to confirm. He knows Kara is right, he’s spent the better part of his day picking at all of Ryan’s personality flaws, from the significant to the completely trivial. Though he’s done almost nothing to convince himself that this feeling making a quick meal of his insides is a sense of protection, a best friend looking out for another and not the petty jealousy he knows all too well. He’s sure John’s tattoo is glowing neon green.

He steps into the kitchen as nonchalantly as is possible. John is laughing, low and throaty with Ryan’s hand on his shoulder. They’re leaning against the counter smiling at each other. John’s gaze finds Cam’s and his smile falters, his laughter slowly fading.

Ryan must catch John’s look because his voice dies, his unfinished story along with it as he turns to the source of the tension.

“Party move inside?” Cam jokes, lamely.

“Hey Cam,” Ryan says, not quite meeting Cam’s gaze, head ducking slightly, he flicks a gaze to John, and then back towards Cam, “we were just—”

“Yeah,” Cam says, cutting him off, because no shit you were just, he thinks. He can’t quite read the expression on John’s face but he feels a wave of disappointment wash over himself and he’s not sure who it is coming from.

“Ryan and I—“John tries and Cam cuts him off too, because he really doesn’t want that confirmation in inevitably pitiful excuses.

“Yeah, last night pretty much made that clear for me, thanks,” Cam smiles like he’s sharing in a big joke, and Ryan looks away.

“Look Cam we’re not—“ Ryan stops and his eyes dart to John like he’s looking for help.

“No?” Cam asks.

“No.” Ryan reiterates, and Cam laughs. Ryan cracks a nervous grin.

“So last night?” Cam pushes, and he knows he is toeing a line and he doesn’t really care, because Ryan is still standing too close to John and he can still see so clearly in his mind his hands spanning John’s back, and John moving his own up the inseam of Ryan’s thigh.

“Uh..n—” Ryan looks stricken for a moment.

“Cam,” John warns.

“You always did love ‘em and leave ‘em.” Cam laughs, his voice cold.

“Cam,” John says again, this time moving forward, his back going rigid.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ryan asks, standing up straighter and taking a step towards Cam.

“Ryan,” John says, voice a strained calm, trying to mediate.

“No John, I’d really like to hear this,” Ryan waves a hand towards Sheppard.

“What?” Cam asks, laughing. “You don’t remember Matt Green?”

“Matt Green?” Ryan says, incredulous.

“Yeah 5’ll, blonde hair, blue eyes,” Cam says, sarcastic.

“Matt Green, from high school Matt Green?” Ryan asks, confused.

“Matty Green!” Cam shouts, “crazy about this kid,” Cam explains, waving a hand at Ryan. And he was, Cam remembers, he and Matt a year younger than Ryan which automatically made him somehow cooler to be around. Matt and Ryan had been friends for a year before they started hooking up. It was casual at first, small town and all that, they couldn’t afford to be very public about any kind of relationship. But the perks of being friends meant spending hours together, all night out, overnighters weren’t overly suspicious.

“But you were never really that into him, were you?” Cam asks rhetorically.

“Cam, I broke up with Matt when I went off to college,” Ryan reasons, staring at Cam with something like concern.

“After using him,” Cam says and Ryan is shaking his head. “No?”

“Cam…”

“Just…getting laid was more important to you than having an actual relationship, and you pretended for a year that once you went away to school things would be different. And he loved you Ryan and you fucking left.”

“I was eighteen Cam!” Ryan shouts. “That was twenty years ago!” His arms wave in gesticulation.

“I’m pretty sure Matt Green is over it!” Ryan reasons, “hasn’t he been with his partner for a decade now?”

“You weren’t the one that had to stay behind after that Ryan,” Cam tries, but Ryan is shaking his head, and Cam can feel the heat rising on his face. “And it’s not like he was the only—”

“Cam.” John’s voice is dangerously low, his hands are up in front of him in a defensive position, poised for the offense, as though he’s expecting to have to break up a fist fight. His words are measured and controlled and Cam recognizes the tensed stance, has seen it many times, but never before has he been on the receiving end of John Sheppard’s ‘if a member of my team is harmed’ voice.

“Give me a fucking break Mitchell,” Ryan hisses. He laughs a little desperately. “Not everyone is harboring decades worth of unrequited feelings for someone,” Ryan is looking at Cam pointedly.

“Hello pot, meet kettle,” Ryan smirks.

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Cam asks, the tattoo on his wrist is charcoal gray when he flicks a gaze to it.

“When’s the last relationship you’ve had Cam?” Ryan asks, crossing his arms over his chest expectantly. “Hmm?” Cam only stares wordlessly between the two.

“That’s right Mitchell, never. You’ve never stuck around long enough—“

“No. That’s not…” Cam starts, stepping forward.

“How about Amy Vandenberg?” Ryan shouts, throwing his arms in the air and laughing.

“How long were you in love with her for? Four years of high school give or take a decade?”

“Ryan,” John tries, moving forward, but Ryan ignores him.

“And when’d that finally happen?” Ryan asks. “Was it the best, what? Twenty-four hours of your life?” Ryan grins.

“That’s not fair,” Cam says, and he’s alarmed at how shaky his voice sounds, humiliation and rage simmering beneath his flushed skin. “My job i--“

“Is a really excellent excuse,” Ryan snaps. “Grow the fuck up Mitchell.” Ryan huffs a patronizing laugh and grabs a small pile of napkins off the counter beside John.

“Ryan,” John says reaching out to grab at the sleeve of his tuxedo but Ryan pulls away too quickly and Sheppard closes his fingers over nothing.

“Sorry John,” he says quietly. He backs up toward the door, “try again in twenty. He might still be worth it at 57.” Ryan smiles softly at John and raises the napkins in his hand, “gonna give these to Wendy,” he says and leaves.

Cam stands where he is, not sure what to say, he sees Kara out of the corner of his eye and he turns a fraction of an inch, to see her shake her head, livid, before she disappears.

“Mom wanted napkins?” Cam asks. John doesn’t say anything for a second.

“Yeah, Ryan and I came in to grab them,” John tells him, looking at the floor.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So you uh…” Cam starts unsure of how to ask what he wants to know.

“Grabbing extra napkins isn’t a euphemism for anything, no,” John reassures him.

“So you aren’t…” Cam leaves the end of his sentence open.

“What would it matter to you Mitchell?” John asks, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. Cam looks down at the scuff mark his shoe made and spares a thought for his mother’s indignation before raising his head and catching John’s eye. He opens his mouth then snaps it shut.

“It matters to me.”

 

 

***

“It matters to me,” Cam says finally, willing himself not to look away from John, even when his eyes flicker and turn cold and expressionless.

“No,” John says, shaking his head.

“What?” Cam asks, exhaling in a rush of breath, bemused.

“It doesn’t get to matter to you Cam. Not like this.” John is shaking his head, and Cam is alarmed to see his eyes are glossy. Cam has only ever seen John cry twice, John has only ever allowed him to see John cry twice. This is the worst that Cam’s felt in a long time, and this right here, is what he’d been trying desperately to avoid. He’s seen what the job does to relationships, Daniel had Sha’re until the job, Teal’c and Drey’auc  and nearly his son, and Sam’s list is too long for Cam to properly recount. That was his excuse for a long time, and Ryan is right, it’s the reason he and Amy would never have worked, but John. John can take care of himself, has taken care of Cam more times than he can count.

He remembers telling Vala the hard part about being on a team is not sacrificing yourself for them, it’s watching them do it for you. The thought of leaving behind a grieving best friend is difficult enough without adding whatever they could be into the whole complicated mix. And it’s not that that he’s afraid of, because Ryan was right about that too…it’s him. It’s Cameron, and his complete and utter lack of relationship finesse, because it’s true, he’s never had one, not really.

There were a few, and he cared for them, deeply, went ring shopping for one before he realized he was only doing it because that’s what he was supposed to do and called the whole thing off, the whole six months they’d been together and it hurt him worse realizing how little his life changed without her.

He can’t do that to John. Can’t fuck it all up like he knows he’s going to, because that’s what Cameron Mitchell does.

“I need to know! Do you have feelings for me Cam?” John’s voice cuts through the silence, harsh and strained. Cam just stares at him, wide eyes darting around the room like he’s scoping out his exit.

“You do know what the DA stands for in DADT right?” Cam asks, voice cracking, trying for a smile that feels ridiculously out of place and more than a little insane. John’s next move isn’t entirely out of character, if not a little unexpected, as he grabs at ends of his hair and shouts, angrily.

“I don’t know John,” Cam says, instead. He looks down at the floor, hunching into himself. “I’ve…” Cam doesn’t know how to say how he doesn’t know what he feels. The moment feels monumental, pivotal, and Cam was never really good with words, too blunt, too impatient, too easily irritated, too selfish. He wants to say what John wants to hear, but mostly he wants to feel it.

 “John, you’re my best friend. I would die for you without a second thought, you know that.” John just nods. “And…have I thought about this…” Cam says, waving a hand between the two of them.

“Yeah, maybe sometimes,” Cam tries. “You’re…you know, with the—“ and he waves a hand to John’s hair and the soft smirk forming on his face, and generally to the rest of John.

“Cam—“ John starts but Cam waves him off, pleading. He needs to say this.

“But I’ve never really thought about us. Never really considered there could ever be an us, and I don’t know what I want John. I don’t even know if what I feel is mine.” Cam winds his hands into the jacket of his tuxedo, gesturing to his chest, over his heart.

“Everything that’s happened between us,” Cam says, “I don’t know why I did any of those things.” Cam straightens when John inches forward, breaching the three foot wide space he put carefully between he and John.

“What do you feel right now?” John asks, still moving closer, and Cam tenses.

“I uh…I feel,” Cam’s breath is caught in a throat gone dry, as Sheppard steps into the danger zone, his hand reaching across the small gap between their bodies to grip Cam’s shoulder, sliding hot across his skin to his neck, and back to cradle his head.

“What if everything I feel isn’t mine John, I don’t want to hurt y—“ Cam says, voice barely above a harsh whisper, his hands still curled into the fabric of his shirt, afraid to move, barely breathing.

“What if I don’t care?” John asks, determined, and then his lips are against Cam’s and it feels like the ending to a good story, to every SG-1 mission report that Cam could get his hands on, the accumulation of a lifetime of trying. Except better, because John’s hands are on his face, holding him close and Cam’s are loosening away from his own chest to fall a little fumbling against John’s hips, his fingers pulling up the edge of John’s shirts to press against hot skin.

John’s mouth is persistent, his teeth nipping and pulling at Cam’s lower lip and Cam whimpers. The side of Cam’s face is cold as one of John’s hands is suddenly gone, and he wants to grab it, to put it back, but then it starts scrabbling at the button on his pants, pressing against where his cock is hard and heavy and Cam groans, pulling back. He pushes John away.

“Can’t,” Cam says, panting. John doesn’t look convinced. “Sheppard.” Cam shakes his head, backing away. John gives him a blank look, his face flushed and his lips red, the line of his erection obvious in his pants.

“Cam,” John’s voice is pleading and his eyes are filling with angry tears and Cam shakes his head.

“No I mean…” Cam ducks his head, when he looks back up John looks hurt. “My gran’ma is outside Sheppard,” Cam smirks.

“So?” John jokes, but he looks visibly relieved.

“You want to give her a heart attack Sheppard?” Cam asks.

“She’s been ogling me since I arrived, I don’t think she’d mind so much,” John teases and Cam steps forward and punches him lightly.

“Later okay?” Cam looks at where his hand lays casually against Sheppard’s chest, trembling with the adrenaline pumping through his system. John grabs his hand and holds it, rubbing at his palm, the both of them shaking softly.

“Cam,” John says. Cam doesn’t trust his voice so he nods. “Only if you mean it. I’m a big boy Mitchell, but I can’t play any more games.” Cam doesn’t say anything, just steps forward the foot between them and cradles John’s face in the hand that isn’t clutching John’s and kisses him deeply. He pulls away an inch, their breath hot on each other’s lips and kisses John once more, hard and quick, before pulling away completely, letting their hands drop and fall away from each other.

“Later.” John nods and Cam turns away.

 

 

***

John leans back against the counter, huffs out a sigh that’s equal parts exasperation and contentment. His mouth twitches up into a smirk he can’t quite control and he looks up in time to watch Cameron walk away. John has had to be discreet when it comes to attraction, looking when no one else is, subtlety. And the going is always the easiest to get away with, so yeah he’s had some experience watching Cameron walk away, or…bend over to pick things up that John may or may not have accidentally dropped…or lean over a console to see what Sam’s working on…

And that one time with the leather…

John makes a noise he would never define even under threat of pain or death and Kara jumps into the kitchen with a huge grin.

“Oh my god!” John crosses his arms over his chest and shrugs, trying to suppress the smile. Kara punches him in the shoulder, “ha! You can thank me later.”

“Right, right,” John nods, pushing himself away from the counter and allowing Kara to pull him outside. John can see Cam bent low talking to his gran’ma, and when John flashes him the dirtiest grin he can manage Cam smiles back before flushing and turning his back to him.

“I love you guys!” Kara is clutching at John’s shirt and grinning. “You should have caught the garter.”

“Yeah, no thank you. I’ve been to pris—married.”

“Ooh so cynical,” Kara laughs. John turns again, stares at the slope of Cameron’s brow and the bridge of his nose and the span of his hands and wonders if that’s what Cam wants some day.

“You guys are good together.”

“Oh?” John says, turning to look back down at Kara. She’s watching him watch Cam. “How do you know this?”

“Because I’m psychic.”

“You mean psychotic?” John asks, seriously. Kara winks.

“Because Cam likes taking care of people, but he’s afraid to. And that’s idiotic. And you John Sheppard are just the type to tell him he’s an idiot.” John doesn’t say anything.

“Also both of you are way too pretty not to be together, it’s just logical.”

“I agree.”

“Mmm, good,” Kara nods. John smirks and looks away, catching out of the corner of his eye a streak of pale blue careening towards him before something is pressed against his side.

“John!” Becca is looking up at him, waving her arms and John stoops to pick her up.

“Hey, Becca,” John says.

“I have to ask you something,” Becca tells him, speaking uncharacteristically soft. John walks over to the back porch and sits down on the swing with Becca in his lap.

“Oh yea?” John asks, lowering his head towards hers as she looks up at him, her small fists closed over something shining from between her fingers.

“Yes,” Becca nods. “Will you marry me?” She asks, her high pitched voice going up holding a dark blue ring in the center of her palm. Kara snorts and John tries to hide his smirk at Becca’s glare. Kara covers her mouth and tries to look apologetic.

“Marry you?” John asks, “hmm, well that’s a pretty big step Becca.”

“Yes, but I am very mat-tor for my age,” Becca explains. “Does the ring fit?” She asks, and John grins and slides it on to his ring finger.

“Perfect!” He declares. He looks down at the ring in time to see the indigo turning a pale blue. “What’s that mean?” John asks her.

“It means you’re in love!” Becca explains to him.

“Really?” John asks, watching as the ring turns green. “What about that?” He asks.

“Uhmmmmm even more in love,” Becca says, her hands clutching at John’s ring finger, she nods seriously.

“I used to have a mood ring,” Kara says, sitting down on the swing beside John. “A boy gave it to me, I think his name was Greg…or Billy? I don’t know,” Kara sighs. “I used to get a lot of gifts from boys.”

“Whor—“ John starts and Kara’s eyes widen and she punches him on the shoulder.

“Child Sheppard, delicate innocent ears present.”

“For the record I was going to say ‘who wouldn’t want to give you gifts’.”

“Right, right.”

“Falsely accused,” John says, mock indignant. He stares down at the ring on his finger, the cold metal changing yet again to a light yellow.

“Wait…” John says, staring down at the ring on his finger. He’s struck suddenly by a sense of deja-vu he can’t quite place, it settles uncomfortably in his stomach, like whatever it is isn’t good. “Where’d you get this Becca?” John asks.

“What’s wrong?” Kara asks. John can feel her hand on his arm.

“I got it from Uncle Cam’s room. I sort of stoled it but I’ll put it back when we’re married.”

“Wait!” John stands suddenly scooping Becca up and placing her on the bench.

“John?” Kara asks, concerned, “you alright?”

“Yeah, I just…remembered something, I’ll be right back.” John pulls the rickety screen door open and steps into the short hallway leading to the kitchen. He paces back and forth in front of the small off white refrigerator covered in magnets and pictures of Cam and Ash as children. He pulls his sleeve up and stares at the thin pale lines on his wrist.

“I almost forgot about you,” he says to it, having worn his signature wrist band since arriving. It makes him feel vaguely uncomfortable to catch glimpses of the mark, and not wanting others to either he’s taken to covering it up. John’s excuse has been awkward questions, but he thinks it would be easy enough to claim their entire circle of friends each got a tattoo to signify their bond. Ironic, John thinks.

“You change colors,” John tells it, staring at the mark, pale blue. “Hmm.”

John’s not an idiot; he knows the likelihood of Cam just happening to have a mood ring lying around is slim to none. He doesn’t believe in coincidences.

“He knew.” John says to no one. “Fuck,” John collapses against a kitchen chair and stairs at a picture of a ten year old Cam holding up a large bass. _Why the hell didn’t he say anything?_ John wonders. There’s no logical reason for Cam to have kept this from him. _Would he have told Cam, though?_ If the situations had been reversed? _Maybe not_. Cam is so easy to read sometimes, he has too much passion to be reserved and he’s not afraid of looking like a moron, he gets angry and when he’s really upset he throws what can only be described as tantrums. John laughs to himself.

But an actual honest to God _mood_ tattoo, he always knew the Ancients were several kinds of fucked up, _but really_. He wonders what Cam’s learned about him, and whether or not he needed the tattoo to figure it out. He stares at his wrist and wonders what he’s missed from Cam.  



	6. Zenith

The sun is going down by the time the last of the guests leave. The sky is a fiery red over the fields stretching out from Cam’s house, fireflies starting to flicker in the shadows of the tree lined property. John and Ash are helping Cam move the folding chairs into the cover of the old oversized shed.

Cam catches John’s gaze, the other man having been watching him for most of the day, which isn’t out of the ordinary for either of them. But Cam is fairly certain the gazes are not lust filled and brimming with unbridled sexual tension, but more of suspicion and curiosity. 

Which is never really good.

“I need to get out of these fucking shoes,” Ash declares, closing the shed door, and snapping the padlock in place.

“I second that and raise you this tie,” John says, loosening it. Cam opens his mouth to say something but snaps it closed when he realizes Ash is staring at him like he knows what he’s thinking. His brother rolls his eyes and walks away with an ill-concealed smirk. 

“Yea,” Cam says instead. 

John walks close to Ash as they head back towards the house, too close that Cam can’t risk talking privately without being overheard. He knows John must realize this. 

“Hey Shep,” Cam starts, as they hit the back porch. John turns around without stopping and nods at him. “Can we—“

 

“I really need a shower,” John says to him before turning back around and heading into the house. Cam stops, stares at the space where John was and wonders, _great now what._

Cam doesn’t find out what now until after he steps out of his own shower to find the house quiet. Ash is half asleep in front of the television and his parents’ bedroom door is closed (he concludes they are asleep but that is one investigation he is more than happy to decline). His own room is empty, John nowhere to be found, his suit is hung neatly on the back of his closet door and Cam picks up the sleeve in his hand and smiles. 

His bedroom is softly lit, the night outside still visible. He can see a light in the distance, and as he walks closer to the window he realizes it is coming from his tree house.

“Sheppard?” He asks the empty room. He shuts his light off, closes the door, and gives a vague thought to stuffing pillows and blankets into their empty beds before he remembers he’s not fifteen and instead heads out into the night.

The moon is rising, almost full, it lights his way easily through the backyard and up to the poplar tree and the small wooden house nested in its branches. He stares up at the underside of the house and the rather haphazardly nailed planks he once used as a ladder. 

“I’m going to die,” Cam says to himself as he climbs, “I fly engineered human-alien fighter jets in apocalyptic space battles and I am going to fall out of a tree and break my neck.” 

“I don’t think Teal’c would be all that surprised.” Cam startles in surprise and the plank beneath his foot cracks slightly as he clings to the tree. 

“Fuck Sheppard!” He shouts looking up at John’s head peering down at him through the door in the floor. John laughs and reaches a hand out and Cam takes it, climbing up as John pulls him through the floor.

“That bastard would laugh his stoic little face off if I was done in by flora.” Cam closes the latch on the door and secures it before collapsing against the aging wood.

“Indeed.” John imitates and they both laugh. 

***

John pushes at Cam until he gets the hint to move, scooting over on his elbows and heels so John can spread the blankets he stole from the linen closet out over the floor. John collapses back against them, his shoulder and his hip bumping into Cam’s. 

 “Convenient.” Cam remarks, shimmying on the fleece, presumably trying to get comfortable. 

“Mmm,” is all John says in response and they fall into a comfortable silence, staring up at the skylight cut into the roof, peering up through the spaces carved in the branches to watch the stars overhead. 

“My dad started to build this before his accident,” Cam says suddenly, like he’s answering a question John doesn’t remember ever asking. “It was half finished and when he came back it just sat here, I’d look at it out my bedroom window and I hated it. It was just this, obvious reminder of what my dad’d never be able to do with me again.” 

“But you finished it?” 

“Yeah. My dad he’d…he’d ask ‘today we gonna finish that damn tree house?’ And I’d always say, ‘maybe tomorrow’ only I was never really planning on it. I thought he was just trying to make me feel better, but I wasn’t really the one that needed it.” 

“So one day I come outside and Ash is in the tree house trying to nail one part of the wall up. Have you ever seen a four year old trying to use a hammer?” Cam asks and John turns to look at him and he’s smiling fondly, it’s a good look, John thinks. 

“I have no idea how the hell he got in the tree house in the first place. But uh…we built it together, my dad telling us what to do.”

“So…a ten and four year old built this place?” John clarifies. “Should I have updated my will before we climbed up here?” 

“Its fine,” Cam says, bouncing in place to prove it, the floorboards squeak and John looks at him speculatively. The moonlight through the leaves casts shadows over Cam’s face that move when the wind blows through the branches, obscuring his features and catching in his irises. John stretches his neck forward slightly and captures Cam’s lips against his own. 

He can feel Cam’s smile against his lips as he kisses him, his teeth nipping at John’s bottom lip and his tongue pushing into John’s parted mouth. John pulls away a few inches.

“What’s that for?” Cam asks, his eyes a little out of focus.

“We could die here,” John tells him and Cam huffs out a laugh.

“We could, it’s a possibility. So we should…” and John reaches a hand out to cup Cam’s face and pulls him forward again. 

*** 

Cam rolls over, his hip digging into the floor uncomfortably as he inches forward until he’s pressed against the length of John’s side leaning over him. When his hand moves insistently between John’s legs to cup the warm weight of him through his jeans John’s back arches up off the floor. He bites at Cam’s lip with a groan, his tongue moving sloppily along Cam’s mouth.

***

John’s hand is gripping at Cam’s shirt, the other palming him through his jeans with no real pressure, too focused on Cam’s hand sliding over his heated skin to grip at his cock, hard in his undone jeans. 

“Fuck Cam,” he hisses against Cam’s lips, he can feel Cam’s hips stutter soft into his palm like he doesn’t know he’s doing it, moving without thought as he bites at John’s jaw and jerks him slow and hard. 

“ _Cam_ ,” he says, but he means to say _faster_ , but then Cam bites his neck, hard and his hand speeds up, and John closes his eyes as he comes. 

***

Cam wipes his hand on the outside of John’s boxers as he pulls it free and John reaches at Cam’s fly but Cam grabs his hand to stop him.

“Don’t,” he whispers, lying back against the blankets, pulling John’s arm around him and using his bicep to cushion his head. “Not yet,” Cam tells him, before John can ask. John just nods his head a few times and Cam tilts his own back to bite softly at the underside of John’s chin and the side of his neck. 

“When I was a kid I used to pretend this was my spaceship,” Cam says into the silence.

“Yeah? That why the…décor?” John asks. Cam smiles and nods, tilting his head to look at the scraps of metal secured to the wall in fake panels, the wires connected to nothing hanging from the ceiling and disappearing into old computer parts. 

“My dad bought me a telescope when I was eleven. I used to sit up here and look at the stars and wish so badly I could be there. I named them all myself, couldn’t ever read a star chart to save my life.”

“Pfft,” John laughs, his body vibrating beneath Cam’s. Cam punches him lightly in the abdomen. 

“I wonder which ones we’ve been to,” Cam says, staring up at the sky through the roof. 

“That one,” John says, pointing.

“Really?” Cam asks, wondering how John can tell.

“No idea,” John sighs, curling his arm and sweeping Cam closer to him. 

***

“Hey Sheppard?” Cam asks; his voice is sort of soft and cautious like he’s hoping John might not answer him.

“Mm?” He asks, bumping his head softly into Cam’s.

“I know I’m not supposed to ask…” Cam starts and John’s mouth quirks up in a grin. 

“I think that ship has left the hangar Cameron.” 

“I like when you call me Cameron,” Cam teases.

“Yeah? What about sir?” John asks, ducking his head and biting at the tip of Cam’s ear. 

“We are _so_ not going there, Sheppard,” Cam says, John huffs out a laugh, breath hot in Cam’s ear, and Cam lets out a low groan. He smirks and makes a point of panting a little harder and Cam turns his neck to let John suck the skin below his jaw. 

***

What’d you want to know?” John asks, and Cam closes his eyes and breathes, licking over his lips as John starts biting harder.

“Fuck if I know,” Cam says. John’s hand is starting to creep towards his cock, half hard in the track pants he pulled on after his shower. John’s hand slides beneath the waistband, curling over his thigh before his hand stops and Cam realizes he’s laughing against his neck.

“What?” Cam asks, face flushing. “You know I really don’t like it when people touch my dick and then laugh about it.”

“No it’s—wait…does that happen often?” John asks, lifting his head. Cam scowls and John laughs again and ducks his head against Cam’s neck. “You’re not wearing underwear.” 

“Is that a problem?” Cam asks and John nods his head against Cam’s neck as his fist wraps around Cam’s cock and Cam’s jaw snaps shut on a moan. 

“Yes, very _very_ offended,” John says, voice low as he moves down Cam’s body. 

“I can see that…yea,” Cam nods, over and over. Cam grips the blanket beneath him as John lifts himself up to straddle him, gripping the edges of Cam’s waistband in his hands before pulling his pants down his thighs. 

John’s features are thrown in stark relief, his face cut from shadow and pale in the moonlight, but Cam can see the openness in the tilt of his lip on a smirk and the focus of his eyes and his hands against his skin. 

***

John braces himself before ducking his head to take Cam into his mouth, no pretense no teasing, like he might if he hadn’t been picturing this moment for so long (and if Cam wasn’t a good several inches larger than John’s fantasies had generously imagined). 

“Oh fuck,” Cam says, and he sounds almost surprised. “I just _knew_ …shit…you could put that back _fuck_ talking mouth to much be-better uses.” John smirks around Cam’s dick and _mhms_ in response and Cam’s body jerks beneath him.

“I remembered,” Cam huffs, “what I was gonna ask?” John looks up at him incredulously, quirking a brow, pulling off.

“Now?” He asks.

“Are you—“ John swirls his tongue rapidly over the head of Cam’s cock, “oooh gay?” John freezes. 

“What?” 

“Are you?” Cam asks, breathing hard. 

“You’re asking me if I’m gay…while I have a dick in my mouth? I’d say yea this is pretty gay.”

“But are _you_ , I mean do you consider yourself?” Cam asks, propping himself up on his elbows to look down at John.

“I don’t know. I like women if that’s what you’re wondering,” John replies and Cam nods, looking like he’s thinking far too hard for someone who has John’s saliva glistening on his erection. “But I also really love cock Cam so if you’ll shut your mouth I’ll gladly open mine.”

John goes back down, swallowing Cam as far as he can before he pulls back off and Cam is making  humming noises in between contented sighs, his hand falling against the hair at the back of John’s head. 

***

“Can I ask you something?” John asks, breathing hard against the hand he has curled around Cam’s dick. 

“Uh what?” Cam asks, his throat dry. 

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” John asks, raising his arm and showing Cam the tattoo practically glowing a fiery red. Cam blinks, gapes at it in confusion, not the question he was expecting. John ducks his head slightly and licks a stripe up Cam’s shaft and Cam groans letting his eyes flutter closed.

“I don’t…” Cam says, and John jerks once, “ _please_ ,” Cam mutters incoherent. His hand scrabbles at John’s head in an attempt to prod him in the direction of his dick.

“You knew right?”

“Mhm, John—“ John takes Cam back into his mouth and Cam sighs.

“So how come you didn’t say anything?” 

“Thought if you knew, _god_ , you’d I don’t know…” Cam thrusts up against John’s mouth, and John grips his hip, pushing him back against the floor. “Figure out how to…I don’t know.”

Cam huffs in frustration, running a hand over his sweat slicked forehead and propping himself up with a sigh. John pulls off and kneels across Cam’s thighs, steadying himself with a palm beside Cam’s naked hip.

“I just…” Cam pants, unsure of what to say because, “I don’t know why I didn’t say anything. I was going to, back at the diner, and I just…I thought, you could try to suppress emotions, I mean I’ve seen you do it, you’re pretty good at it. But this tattoo thing, it’s not…interpretive, it is what it is.” 

***

“Yeah.”

“You’re upset.”

“No,” John says, shaking his head.

“That wasn’t a question.” When John looks up it’s to find Cam watching him. 

“Your hair is getting long,” John tells him, staring at the spikes falling across Cam’s flushed skin. John moves forward, gripping Cam’s side his thumb sliding across Cam’s hip; Cam’s dick twitches beside his hand. John leans in tilting his head to press his lips against Cam’s, nipping at Cam’s bottom lip. 

“I should have told you,” Cam says, apologetically between hard kisses, and John nods.

“Yes, you should have.”

“I’m sor—“

“Stop talking now,” John instructs and Cam nods fervently, bringing a hand up to cradle John’s head as the kiss deepens and grows desperate. 

***

Cam uses John’s weight against his thighs to anchor himself as he reaches for the hem of John’s t-shirt and pulls it up and off, barely breaking contact between their persistent mouths. When John shifts to slide Cam’s track pants the rest of the way off, Cam offsets his balance with a deliberate push, rolling them over until Cam is poised over John. 

***

John’s gasp of surprise turns quickly to arousal when Cam’s make very little pretense as he cups John once more through the thin layer of his cotton boxers. He’s hard again, and, “God, if this is their doing I take back all of the bad things I ever said about the Ancients.” 

***

Cam huffs a laugh against John’s neck in agreement. He pulls his own t-shirt off and bunches it up with the rest of their discarded clothing and uses it as a makeshift pillow for John. John raises an eyebrow at him, which Cam ignores in favor of pulling Sheppard’s jeans and boxers down his thighs and over his already bare feet.

“You think this is how it’s going to be?” John asks, but he’s already spreading his legs for Cam to settle in between, wrapping his thighs around either side of Cam’s hips.

***

John’s heard Cam run at the mouth a mile a minute with incessant rambling; he’s seen Cam speeding behind the wheel of a car and showing off in the cockpit. So it surprises him some, when Cam fucks him slow and hard, with deliberate thrusts of his hips against John’s in long agonizing strokes. 

John always has a sarcastic quip for everything, it’s one of his less charming features, and Cam has enough familiarity with his wit to feel a certain smugness at Sheppard’s complete and utter silence. John is panting hard beneath him, every thrust of his hips earning him a long drawn out moan as his eyes flutter open and closed. 

Cam is leaning over John braced on his forearm, his head buried in the crook of John’s neck as he fucks him. John scratches down Cam’s back and bites at his shoulder marks he plans to revisit later. Each thrust of Cam’s hips into his sends John back until he has to reach out a hand to brace himself on the wall behind him. 

The tattoo on Cam’s wrist is scorching hot, his pulse thumping beneath it. John can feel his own pulse throbbing and the distant feel of another, like an echo just beneath it, and he stares up at Cam who’s looking down at him.

“Fuck, I can feel your…” Cam pants, and John nods closing his eyes and thunking his head back against the floor. 

“Cam,” John groans, “I’m really close,” he whispers, his voice a hushed rasp.

“Me too,” Cam says, nodding rapidly, his hips speeding, losing focus, his thrusts more erratic and without rhythm. John grabs Cam’s arm, slots their fingers together, watches as the tattoos touch. 

There’s a small flash of golden light and the symbols bleed heat in a trickle down each wrist. Cam’s breath stops in his chest as he comes, his hips stopping, pumping into John. John’s moan is low and guttural, as he spills onto his stomach and Cam’s, his cock twitching between them. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” John shouts, when Cam pulls out and collapses against him, their hands still tangled together.

“Lord’s name…vain…not,” Cam tries with a grin, but he’s too close to whooping, or yeehawing and he doesn’t think John will ever sleep with him again if he does, so instead he buries his face in John’s neck and laughs. 

“Knew those fucking Ancients were kinky bastards, what the hell was that?” John asks, wrapping an arm around Cam.

“God I love science,” Cam laughs.

“I…you,” John says, though he thinks he might have forgotten something important in the middle there. Cam raises himself up to look at John. He doesn’t say anything, and John doesn’t clarify, doesn’t think he could. Cam kisses him, and it’s soft and affectionate and it makes John flush. 

“Whatever happens, after the device I mean,” Cam tries, “I mean I don’t know what it…and if I…”

“It’s okay,” John says. Cam shakes his head.

“No, I mean…I don’t know what will happen after the device shuts off or whatever, but…I mean I just want you to know that…I want…this.” Cam is propped up, looking at the hand he has against John’s chest, his thumb stroking back and forth over his ribcage.

“This is what I want.”

“Me too.”

 


	7. Zenith

Sated and content both men lay tangled together on the edges of sleep while unnoticed by either a jet of golden light threads its way out one’s back through other’s, bursting from the chest as though in reverse to weave its way up towards the stars and settle undetected in the middle of a pale green gem imbedded in smooth gray stone which blinks softly, once, twice, three times before darkening.


	8. Entropy

John blinks himself awake, the sun burning his dilated pupils as he struggles to take in his surroundings. His back hurts, the ground beneath him hard and firm and the thought of the others moving around him, maybe starting a fire for breakfast flits through his head before he realizes he’s on Earth. There’s something warm and heavy lying across his chest and as he stretches his arms he wraps them more firmly around the mass of muscle and sleep warm skin of Cam’s bare back.

He grins easily and content, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling of the tree house, closing his eyes with the intent to revel in the feel of Cam’s chest rising and falling soft against his own and his hair tickling beneath John’s chin. Cam stirs suddenly then and John closes his eyes and stills pretending to be asleep, until Cam is moving to wrap a loose and lazy fist around John’s half hard cock and John’s hips stutter into his hand with a small sigh.

Cam lifts himself up, maneuvers a hand beneath John’s head to balance poised above him. He’s grinning and John returns it, sliding a hand through his hair to haul him in for a kiss.

“Morning breath,” Cam protests trying to duck away. “My breath stinks,” Cam shouts, just before John forces himself on him.

“And that would be different from always how?” John teases, and Cam just shakes his head, lowering his eyes with a mischievous grin and then his hand tightens around John with a flick of his wrist that has John’s back arching up off the floor.

“Behave or I’ll…” Cam trails off, jerking john harder.

“You’ll what?”

“Stop.” Cam says, stilling his hand and John lets out a whimper of protest, grappling at Cam’s hand in a whine. Cam speeds his hand up, ducking against John and licking and sucking at his neck as John pulses and comes.

John pulls Cam against him as his breathing returns to normal, Cam slides his arms around John’s neck and settles on top of him. John moves his hands down Cam’s back to the bare skin of his ass. He can feel Cam’s dick harden between them but when he tries to force a hand between their bodies Cam pulls away.

John doesn’t ask, just lets him pull away as he moves to start pulling on his wrinkled clothes strewn about the tree house.

“My parents will be up soon. Let’s try to avoid the walk of shame through the kitchen with my mother at the stove.” John ducks his head and smirks.

“Besides,” Cam says, and John looks up in time to see Cam press a hand to the tent in his pants. “I really want to fuck you in the shower.”

 

When they finally make it down the stairs for breakfast, Wendy is standing at the stove scrambling eggs. John catches Cameron’s eye, he looks away towards the table, blushing to the tips of his ears.

“You two are up early,” she says, without turning around and John can tell by the tone of her voice she knows exactly what they were up to. Cam is flushing even brighter if it’s possible, John thinks.

“Yeah, early start.”

“Mhm,” she says innocently. Cam pulls two mugs out of the cabinet by the refrigerator, clinking them together loudly, clunking them down against the counter and noisily pouring coffee. John is trying not to laugh at Cam’s expense as he stands up to help. Cam hands him his coffee mug and John smirks at him, letting his fingers brush unnecessarily over Cam’s as he pulls the mug from his outstretched hand. Cam looks up at him like he’s ready for round three when Wendy turns and bustles between them to get to the table.

“Here, sit, eat!” She orders, pouring a generous amount of eggs onto each of their plates. Cam sits down next to John at the table. When her back is turned John slides a foot between Cam’s and kicks him playfully.

“What are you thirteen?” Cam asks, hiding his face behind his coffee.

John shrugs and kicks him again, “If I am that would make what you did early really inappropriate,” and Cam scowls at him.

“You make the best eggs Mrs…Wendy,” John says, turning to Cam’s mother and smiling. She looks pleased and pats him on the shoulder.

“You’re just saying that because you’re used to base food. I wish you boys didn’t have to leave so soon. What’s another couple of days?” She says, sighing. She leans against Cam and runs a hand through his damp hair.

John couldn’t agree with her more, he isn’t a picky eater but there is something to be said about eggs that doesn’t mold itself into ladled shapes. What’s the price of freedom against delicious bacon, anyway? John turns to ask Cam, when he notices the other man looking seriously shell-shocked. His hand clutching his fork stalled halfway to his mouth.

“Cam?” John asks, wondering what’s wrong. “You alright?” Cam doesn’t say anything and John snaps his fingers in front of his face.

“What? No. I mean, yeah,” he says, looking spacey, “I’m fine. I just...” Cam shoves the forkful into his mouth and gulps what looks like half his coffee before he’s pushing away from the table and standing. “I’m gonna get a head start on packing.”

“Why?” John asks, staring at him in concern. “Are you sure—“

“I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” he says to his mother before all but fleeing the kitchen.

“Well what’s got his knickers in a twist?” Wendy asks, looking after him. John shrugs.

 

***

Cam runs a hand over his freshly shaven jaw, the image of his razor dragging across John’s skin and the scent of soap and hair gel still fresh. He rolls up his jeans and the few t-shirts he’s brought and puts them carefully at the bottom of his pack, placing his toiletry bag on top. He zips the duffel wordlessly and collapses on his unmade cot, staring at the torn hems of his jeans.

The weekend feels like a dream, an implanted memory. He knows it happened, can remember each moment with a painful clarity but it doesn’t seem real. His mother is in the kitchen cooking breakfast for the man he just slept with. She didn’t ask and he didn’t tell but she’s filling John up on bacon and eggs like she doesn’t know how they christened her shower that morning.

And now what? What was his plan, he wonders, staring at the oak floors and contemplating what the hell he was thinking. He thinks he’s maybe gone crazy because this isn’t some alternate reality where rainbows arch over the land and flowers rain down over the big neon “Welcome to Gaytopia” sign. Cam knows this whole thing felt a little too good to be true.

“Hey,” John’s voice sounds husky and soft and Cam looks up as he knocks unnecessarily on the door frame. Cam nods and John wanders into the room and over to his own clothes, strewn about. “It’s amazing how much mess you make in such a little time, huh?” John jokes and Cam nods without looking over.

“You alright?” John asks. Cam pauses, wanting to say something but he snaps his mouth shut before:

“Yeah, fine.”

John nods without looking up from the jeans he’s rolling. “Figure we should head out sooner rather than later.” Cam nods in agreement and watches silently as John finishes packing, rolling his t-shirts and dirty boxers and shoving balled up socks in between before placing his toiletry bag on top and zipping it up. When he’s finished he stands and Cam rises to grab his own duffel.

“Hey,” John says softly. Cam turns to look as John closes the short distance between them and captures Cam in a kiss. Cam stands awkwardly in the center of the room wanting to both push and pull, settling instead on neither.

John breaks the kiss and looks at him, but he says nothing before picking up his pack and turning away.

 

Outside in front of the car Cam thinks for a moment his mother is going to say something ridiculous, or whip out a PFLAG sign and hang it on the mailbox or something. But she just pulls him down in a hug and holds him tight and says,

“I love you Cameron.” She grabs John in a hug and stares between the two of them with a smile. Cam doesn’t say anything, just nods once and turns to pop the trunk on the Mustang.

“Have a safe trip!” His mother calls after them, shouting into Cam’s open window. “It was lovely to meet you John.” John smiles and nods as Cam backs out of the driveway.

When they hit the highway John’s hand has made it to Cam’s thigh, his thumb rubbing small circles. Cam can feel himself tense at the touch and John pulls his hand away a few minutes later anyway and Cam can’t figure out what to say.

The car ride to the mountain is awkward. John sleeps (or pretends to) for most of Cam’s four hour shift and blasts Johnny Cash for his own, rendering talking an unnecessary obligation. When the sun streams in through the window he can see John’s warped reflection overlaid against a backdrop of passing scenery. He stares at the slope of his nose, the furrow of his brow over the top of his aviators, and the bow of his lips and he thinks about them against his own and he feels a sense of dread as Cheyenne Mountain looms steadily closer and closer.

John pulls into a parking spot and cuts the engine but makes no move to leave the car. Cam sits up straighter and stares at the concrete wall in front of them. He doesn’t know what to say. He turns to look at John and he opens his mouth and sighs, looking away.

They’ve barely made it into the mountain before being accosted by Vala, John looks tired when he smiles as she bounds into his arms.

“Things are dreadfully boring without you two here for entertainment!” She says, clapping her hands together excitedly. “I believe it is customary when one goes on a trip to bring back souvenirs for their unfortunate comrades who must stay behind in dank, dark, lonely underground facilities,” Vala reasons, looking at Cam expectantly.

“Yeah, sorry Vala, maybe next time,” Cam tells her. She pouts.

“I never get to have anything pretty,” she complains.

“Nice jacket. That new?” Cam asks, noting the non-regulation fitted trench coat she is wearing.

“Yes! Do you like it? Daniel bought it for me with his plastic money card.”

“Did he?” John asks, pretending to admire the coat.

“Does he know?” Cam asks with a sigh.

“Not yet. But I am sure it is only a matter of time!” Vala says cheerfully.

“Speak of the Devil,” Cam mutters as Daniel Jackson rounds the corner into their corridor. His face brightens as he sees them.

“Ah guys! Good. I’m glad you’re here did Vala tell you?” He asks, enthusiastically.

“Bit perky about credit card fraud isn’t he?” Cam asks John.

“What?” Daniel asks, looking around confused. He spots Vala who’s staring intently at a sign announcing proper fire emergency procedure. Daniel rolls his eyes and turns back to Cam and John.

“Right. No. I meant about the device?”

“What? No. Though I can see how fashion might trump that,” Cam says sarcastically.

“What about it?” John asks.

“It was discovered deactivated this morning. Now no one actually deactivated it, despite Sam’s best efforts, it seems to have just shut off on its own, or somehow on your end.”

“What?” Cam says in shock. “So…what?” Daniel sighs and waves them forward.

“Come on, Landry wanted to debrief as soon as you arrived.”

 

“So as far as we can tell the device is completely inactive. We were picking up faint energy traces when the device was active, and now, so far, nothing,” Sam explains, pointing to some chart on the screen in front of them. Cam wonders if sometimes Sam throws in gibberish just to see if anyone’s paying attention (or actually understands whatever she’s attempting to explain).

“We’d like to have you checked out by Doctor Lam, just in case.” General Landry addresses the two before pushing his chair away from the conference table and standing. John and Cam rise with him, standing at attention before he waves them at ease with a hand.

“Now, I’d like to speak with Major Sheppard in my office before he heads down to the infirmary.” Cam sneaks a glance to John who raises a brow at him with a small shrug of his shoulders. Cam watches them enter Landry’s office, the door closing behind them. He can see John’s face through the glass window, but Landry is out of sight, and anyway, Cam was never any good at reading lips.

A moment passes, John is stern and silent before a look Cam’s only seen a handful of times flits across Sheppard’s features. It lasts barely a fraction of a second before his eyes are blank and his face is tense, like he’s being berated.

But for that brief moment Sheppard looked…ecstatic…shocked…surprised…deligh

ted? What did Landry say to him? Cam wonders.

“They want to send him to Atlantis.” Cam jumps in surprise, snapping his head to see Daniel standing beside him with his hands on his hips watching John. He didn’t even hear him come up behind him. It takes him a second to process what Daniel said, even longer to draw any kind of conclusions from it, but when it sinks in it hits him hard, like cold ocean water or a zat blast to the head.

“Wait…what?” He asks, shocked, turning to John and back to Daniel. “But…no,” he says, in disbelief. He looks at John and then at Daniel, pointing to the major and back at himself his finger flittering between them and there are words jumbled in his head and he says decisively,

“Mine.” And then he’s flushing, hard and Daniel’s eyes widen and he’s trying hard not to smile Cam can tell. “Oh...let’s pretend I didn’t just say that.”

Daniel looks away.

“Doctor Lam needed…right? So I’ll be there.” Cam turns and wanders out of the debriefing room, ignoring Sam’s eyes as he passes her in the doorway.

 

As Cam is being poked, prodded, scanned, and generally minutely inspected he wonders what John is thinking. It’s the first time in a few days that he realizes he can’t feel it. This morning something felt wrong, like pulling your underwear on backwards, like he didn’t fit. And now that he knows, it’s like he can feel that space, where John used to be, pushing up against his own thoughts and feelings, tangling with them until they were inseparable from his own. He feels almost cold, empty, like if he’s suddenly not wearing his dogtags, he’d be clutching at his chest wondering where they are, but it’s not tangible enough for Cam to go searching for.

He misses it. But there’s a clarity of mind that he hasn’t felt since it started. Like everything just seems so much worse, all of what held him back for the past few years from John is suddenly rushing back and he feels trapped.

“…and as a precaution keeping you in close proximity to each other, at least until we’re certain there are no lasting effects.” Cam looks up and realizes Doctor Lam is speaking to both he and Sheppard, whose nodding.

“So Sam doesn’t know why the tattoos are still there?” John is asking and Cam looks down at his own wrist, having forgotten about the tattoo until now. It’s still there, small and pale.

“No, she’s not sure. Daniel hasn’t been able to find anything yet. But it’s possible it’s just a nice souvenir,” Doctor Lam sighs. “You’re cleared for active duty.”

Cam pulls his shirt back over his head as Doctor Lam gives a final nod and disappears around the curtain surrounding their two beds.

 

***

John lets his fingers trail over the skin of his wrist before replaces his band over it. He watches Cam make a big to do over fixing his t-shirt, adjusting the collar, then the sleeves, pulling his dogtags out, then shoving them back in and starting over.

John wonders if he is waiting for John to say something, or maybe for John to get bored and leave first. He thinks about that morning, the way Cam was playing footsy under the table with him one minute and looking like he’d seen an entire Ori fleet the next.

“So the device,” John starts, staring in front of him and not at Cam who stills beside him.

“Yeah.”

“This morning,” John tries.

“What about it?” Cam asks.

“You…” John doesn’t know what he wants to ask. “Do you feel different?”

“I dunno. I guess, sorta, yea.” John flicks a gaze to Cam, who looks away and down at his hands folded in his lap. “Do you?”

“Not really.”

“Oh,” Cam coughs. “I mean…I feel like I can think easier. It’s like when you get happy drunk, not stumbling and vomiting in the potted plants drunk but the, happy buzzed kind of drunk when everything just feels good. And you know what you should and shouldn’t do, but the shouldn’t doesn’t seem like that big of a deal…”

John feels something tighten in his chest.

“And now I feel like…I’m sober. And it’s the morning after…”

“Ah,” John lets out a strangled noise, the sting behind his eyes from what he’s not sure because there’s plenty to choose from, anger, disappointment, humiliation. He stands up and turns away from Cam, can’t look at him.

“So I’m your drunken regret?” He asks, bitterly. He can feel Cam wince behind him.

“I didn’t…I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what?” John asks with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Can we do this somewhere else?” Cam asks, lowering his voice as the shadow of a medic passes by the curtain.

“Sure, sir,” John nods. He turns and walks away without looking back. His duffel is in his quarters when he gets there, shutting the door behind him he collapses straight back against the bed, palm clamped over his face, fingers rubbing over his throbbing temples.

“So are you going to go?” John jumps, sitting up and grabbing at the thigh holster that isn’t there. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Vala,” John sighs, clutching at his racing heart. “Christ.”

“Well?” She asks, without preamble, jumping up out of the arm chair in the corner of the room and bounding over to the bed. “Are you leaving us for greener pastors?”

“Pastures,” John corrects, shaking his head in confusion. “And…I don’t know yet.”

“I hear they want to give you command of your own team? That’d be exciting, bossing people around, not having to take orders, though you never really seem to take them anyway.” John just looks at her. “Which I admire greatly of course, no I too am not one to sit idly back and fall in command.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“I think Daniel nearly drowned himself in tears when he found out they want to send you and Sam. I think Samantha would make a wonderful expedition leader, don’t you agree?” Vala smiles.

“Yeah, she will.” John nods, meaning it. Truthfully, he’s not sure what he wants do. When Landry said they wanted him to command the SGA-1 he’d been, to say the least, shocked. Apparently his expression of the gene rivals even that of O’Neill. He’s not fooling himself into believing that isn’t the real reason for the sudden change in personnel. He’d be a glorified light switch, but SGA-1.

“We’d all miss you, if you decide to leave us. Your contribution to this team is invaluable,” Vala drawls.

“Samantha has the science, Daniel has the book smarts, Teal’c’s eyebrows are the most expressive in two galaxies, my feminine wiles and overt sexual prowess, your hair, Cameron’s…Cameron’s unique and unsurpassed ability to get beaten up by most life forms.” John laughs, and Vala bumps her shoulder into his.

“I would miss that,” John admits.

“It does provide limitless sources of entertainment.”

 

***

John catches Daniel in his office before he leaves for the night.

“Hey, you have a minute?” He asks, knocking on the door frame a few obligatory times before stepping into the softly lit room. Daniel is stooped over his counter looking at a heavy text.

“Uh, yeah sure,” He says, looking a little surprised. “What’s up?”

“You said you found the device deactivated this morning,” John clarifies and Daniel nods. “But does that mean it was deactivated this morning?” He asks, remembering Cam’s skittish look over breakfast and his sudden desire to be anywhere other than with John.

“Uh…” Daniel says, and he steps away from the counter and grabs up a folder behind him. “No, we checked the security footage from Sam’s lab just to make sure nothing interesting happened. The device just shut off,” Daniel says, flipping through some papers.

“Here,” he says and John steps closer. “Timestamp was approximately midnight.”

“Oh,” John says, unsure of how to react.

“Is there a problem?” Daniel asks, watching him curiously.

“No, just curious is all,” John says, unconvincingly, he thinks if the way Daniel is looking at him is anything to go by.

“Goodnight,” John says, awkwardly.

 

***

There’s a park just a few miles off the highway, right outside Colorado Springs, small enough John only stumbled across it once by accident, couldn’t even find it on a map later. It’s quiet, grassy and tree lined where families come to play with their kids and throw Frisbees with the dog.

John sits on the side of a softly sloping hill overlooking the small pond in the center of the park. Ducks float on the serene surface as a little boy and his sister throw scraps of bread to them.

John marvels at it. The little boy shrieking each time a duck plucks up his bread, the way the little girl’s pigtails swish back and forth as she jumps and plays. They know nothing of the weight settled on his shoulders, that he’s a defender of the planet against alien incursion.

It’s so Earth, John thinks. But he watches as the little girl draws closer to the edge of the pond and her mother’s voice cuts across the water to John, “Honey! That’s close enough, okay?” The little boy creeps closer in defiance and says to his sister, “I bet its cos there’s a sea monster down there,” and the little girl pretends to scream as she runs away.

The couple watching their children fears their inability to swim, to fight against the stranger with the unmarked van, to say no the friends with the pills nicked from their parents’ medicine cabinets.

“Rawr!” The boy screams, waving his hands like they're terrible claws as he chases his sister. “I’mma eat you!”

They have it right.

John flips the coin he’s been stroking in his hand and watches as it tumbles through the air. He catches it swiftly and slaps it against the back of his other hand.

 

***

It’s early when John walks into the mess. There’s only Vala, Cam, and Sam sitting across from each other at the table in the far corner. They must not see him right away because he catches the end of their conversation before hastily changing the subject.

“He canceled his Netflix subscription,” Vala tells them, leaning in.

“Hm,” Sam says, as though thinking hard about something. “When I pointed out that his license was about to expire he didn’t seem all that concerned,” she remarks.

“Looks like he’s already made up his—“ Vala stops suddenly as she catches sight of him, holding his tray of breakfast. He feels like he’s in ninth grade again, wondering if everyone’s talking about him.

He plasters a grin across his face and settles in next to Sam like he doesn’t know and wouldn’t care even if he did. It worked back then.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” He asks.

“We were just discussing the weather and other uncontroversial topics,” Vala smiles reassuringly.

“I’ll bet,” John jokes, opening his milk bottle and taking a sip.

“ I gotta go…do some paperwork,” Sam says, standing. Vala waves and Sam stares pointedly.

“Oh!” She exclaims after looking around confused. “Right. I have to…give her moral support!” Vala decides. Sam rolls her eyes and tugs her away.

“This is why we should have some sort of code!” John catches Vala’s voice just before the doors to the mess close.

John stares down at the oatmeal congealing in his bowl.

“So,” Cam says, staring at his hands folded together on the table top.

“I uh,” John starts, watching as the oatmeal falls from his spoon with a large glop into the bowl in front of him.

“You should go to Atlantis,” Cam says without preamble, voice definitive. He’s still not looking at John. John doesn’t say anything, he just waits until Cam looks up.

“You want me to go to Atlantis?” John asks, carefully.

“I think you want to go to Atlantis,” Cam tells him, watching him. John glances away.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“You want to go to Atlantis. We both know that. Just like we both know I can’t be what you want,” Cam tells him, voice soft and low. Cam stands then, he catches John’s gaze before he looks away, his face set in a tight grimace and he walks away.

John pushes his tray away, suddenly not that hungry.

 

***

The first time they set foot on Atlantis, back when the Ori were still a threat, John lit up the way Cam’s only ever seen him do in the cockpit of a plane. Cam’s seen plenty of girls swoon for John, but nothing like the city and he for her (which should have been a pretty big give away into his genetics, but hindsight is always 20/20).

Cam had expressed his wonder over the Atlantis expedition, especially the veterans who’d been there from the beginning.

“Imagine leaving Earth behind. I mean everything and everyone you know, to go to some…strange alien place where no one knows you and the chance of survival is probably minimal,” Cam told him.

“Yeah,” John said, but his voice held wonder and reverence, deep admiration and a longing that broke Cam’s heart.

He knows Atlantis is a right fit, saw just how much John wants it, in those unguarded moments.

But the thought churns his stomach and makes goosebumps pop across his skin.

“Today’s John’s last chance to accept,” Sam says to him, and Cam’s head snaps up as he stares at her from across her lab. She’s packing the few personal belongings sprinkled throughout, photographs and books, notebooks and trinkets.

“Yeah,” Cam says, nonchalant. Sam stares at him, long and hard. He turns away under her gaze. Cam only has a younger brother, so he’s not really sure but sometimes he’s pretty convinced Sam is what having an older sister would feel like.

“Seriously?” She says to him.

“What?” He asks, petulant. She rolls her eyes.

“You’re an idiot,” she tells him. He scoffs, but can come up with nothing in his defense. There’s a knock at the door and they both turn to see John standing there.

“Hey,” he says. “Can I uh…have a second Cam?” John is asking. Sam stares pointedly and Cam walks out of the lab and into the deserted hallway to stand in front of John.

“I uh,” he says, “I’m about to give Landry my decision.”

“Oh?” Cam says, looking at the collar of John’s shirt.

“Yeah,” John says, and he pauses as though waiting.

“Right,” Cam nods.

“So,” John says, before nothing. There’s a long and excruciating silence that stretches between them and Cam tries and fails several times to open his mouth and say something but he doesn’t.

“I’m going to Atlantis.”

“Good luck,” Cam nods, ducking his head and not looking at him.

“Cam,” John says, his voice soft.

“Yeah?” His voice breaks. John is looking at him like he’s begging him for something and Cam’s eyes dart away because he can’t. He shakes his head and John nods and looks away.

“Alright.” John says, taking a few steps backwards. Cam nods again, not looking at him, and John turns and walks away.

 

***

Cam’s always had an active imagination. Has vivid dreams steeped in unreality. He pictures himself doing something epic, something ridiculously Rom-com, stealing a cargo ship and zooming off after the Daedalus, of dialing up the DHD and stepping through the gate, Walter be damned, to meet John on the other side.

Instead he watches as John and Sam disappear in a flash of white light, and the tiny little spot on a screen flashes out of existence as the Daedalus goes into Hyper drive.

He didn’t even really say good bye.

   



	9. Deliberation

The last (and first) time John was in Atlantis he was handed a lemon by the XO of the base, Major Lorne, and told to it would keep Doctor McKay in line. He and Cam had been wary of the scientist after hearing stories from the rest of the team about his slightly unhealthy and borderline inappropriate thing for Sam (Which got both his and Cam’s overprotective big brother muscle flexing).

“Naw, he’s really okay, he grows on you,” Lorne had said afterwards in reassurance.

“Yes, see,” McKay said defensively.

“Like a fungus,” Lorne added as an afterthought.

So John is a little weary of having him as a major player in his frontline team, but the expedition had survived for three years thanks to him apparently, (and according to more than just Rodney), so John figures he can give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, he and Ronon had hit it off (literally) the last time and Teyla was kind and approachable, asking him questions about himself while being intuitive enough not to really probe where he so clearly didn’t want.

John has always had an undervalued ability to suppress his emotions and generally compartmentalize issues with which he’d rather not deal. Though the transition from the SGC to Pegasus is unexpectedly easy, the amount of work John has more than doubles over night. The simple act of settling onto an Alien world in a giant city-ship is enough of a distraction for John, throw in his new command position and he’s barely had a moment to contemplate anything other than mission reports and personnel files and trying to remember it’s a left out of his quarters to the mess.

Not to mention the jumpers.

John’s heard of them, sure, even saw the back of one in passing at the SGC one time when the Atlantis crew got kicked out of the city.

But now he gets to fly them.

Mind. Controlled. Spaceships.

Sometimes (read: 24/7) when McKay is being sarcastic and condescending or Lorne’s trying to get him to do paperwork (something John wishes desperately he had Cam around to commiserate with) he just says it over and over in his head like a mantra.

Mind. Controlled. Spaceships.

 

***

John is on MRX-314 the first time the light years between he and the Milky Way seems too great to comprehend, and the first time in a long time he’s felt inescapably alone. John looks out on the terrain, standing on the edge of a cliff.

The star system has two suns, burning bright in the sky, and it casts everything in a reddish tint that should be Hellish and harsh but it isn’t. Instead it catches in the water of the lake beneath them and makes it shimmer like it’s filled with gems. The air is clear and they can see for miles and miles, the mountains far beyond look as though they’re lit on fire, the suns rising above their peaks.

“Wow,” John says, because he’s never been one to really sit back and appreciate a view, but it’s pretty spectacular. Rodney is barely paying attention to anything other than the device in his hand, trying to pin down the energy signature.

“Duuude,” John says, with dawning comprehension, because this place reminds him of something, but he wasn’t sure, like a memory long forgotten. “This looks like Galifrey! You know I always thought the Time Lords were ascended beings. Lording over things, general arrogance and condescension,” John starts, turning towards his team.

It’s not the blank stares that are so unfamiliar, he’s used to that, even from his own—his old team. But what disturbs him is the look that’s missing, that one flicker of a smirk from the one person he could count on to get it (or at least humor him). But there’s no one smiling back and he’s on this crazy train alone.

“Galifrey?” Teyla asks. “I am unfamiliar with that world.”

“Are you talking about Doctor Who?” Rodney asks, and John smiles, because yes. “That travesty should never be brought up in my presence again. Unless you’d like to hear my lecture on the blatant disregard for science, I have a power point,” Rodney tells him, staring at him seriously. John shakes his head.

“Never again McKay,” he promises turning away from the group to take one last look over the landscape.

He wishes he had a camera.

Or a cell phone that could call through time and space.

 

***

P3X-515 and Cam remembers just how much he depends on John to balance out his insanity, because laughing with someone is always more pleasurable than cracking yourself up with no way to explain.

“What the hell is that?” Cam asks, jumping back from the dead thing he and his team just shot up. It attacked as soon as they stepped out of the gate, the malp unforgotten and fairly useless for assessing the hostility of said planet.

“It appears to be some kind of reptile-like thing,” Teal’c finishes.

Thing, Cam mouths staring at him, wondering if Earth has rubbed off on his vocabulary a bit.

“It has a strange face,” Vala says, “it’s actually rather disturbing it almost looks like an infant!” Vala cringes and steps away.

“These claws are fascinating!” Dr. Ridge says stepping forward and inspecting the creature. “Look at how large they are!”

“I know what it is,” Cam says, trying to suppress a grin. The Doctor looks up at him.

“It’s a Slitheen, we must be on Raxacoricofallapatorius!”

“I have never heard of Raxacorcaptorus,” the Doctor says confused.

“Raxacoricofallapatorius,” Cam corrects.

“Raxa…porta…fall…orca…piss?”

“Never mind.”

 

***

 

The ground is rocky and uneven beneath his feet as Cam stumbles and slides down the rocky incline. Vala goes careening past him, gaining speed as she bumps him accidentally, shouting an apology as she goes.

“Vala!” Daniel’s worried shout and then the doctor is flying past Cam after her. Cam reaches out a hand and latches it in the back of Daniel’s jacket and tries to slow them both down as Daniel swipes at Vala, just missing her tac-vest and wrapping a fist in a pigtail instead, and pulling.

Vala screams and falls back, Daniel curses and flies forward, Cam shouts and falls against Daniel as they all tumble down the hill in a heap.

“I. Hate. All of you,” Vala growls. Daniel tries crawling off of her, progress impeded by Cam collapsed across both of them. Cam rolls away, every muscle protesting greatly, his leg twitching, throbbing hot and painfully.

Cam stares at the sky, rocks and pebbles digging into his back and he pulls himself into a sitting position. Vala yanks twigs and leaves out of her hair as Daniel inspects his glasses. Teal’c stares down at them, his hands clasped behind his back. He looks past them, stepping over them and continuing without a word.

Cam is struck suddenly with deja-vu and he starts coughing painfully and hits Daniel on the arm.

“Hey…hey Shep you remember—“ he stops suddenly and looks over at Daniel. “Jackson…I mean Jackson…” he trails off awkwardly and looks away.

He doesn’t want to catch the look that he and Vala share.

 

***

Cam looks down at his watch, the digital numbers blurry and unfocused; he yawns and rubs at his eyes. 0100. He pushes away from his desk and stands, piling up the mess of papers spread out on his desk into a semi neat stack and sliding them into a manila folder before grabbing his jacket on the hook on the back of his office (liberally defined) door.

It’s late, Cam muses, wondering if it’s worth the trip home and decides against it. He stops by Daniel’s office and sure enough the lights are on and the door open.

“Jackson,” he says, mock reproving, “what are you doing here still?” He asks. Daniel pauses and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looks up.

“Research,” he says simply, staring down at the text open on his bench.

“Anything good? And or life threatening?” Cam asks, leaning over the counter and peering down at the gibberish of Ancient.

“Not really,” Daniel replies, “not for me anyway…” he trails off. That’s it, in the oh-so-Daniel-fashion of failing to properly make any kind of sense or attempt at an explanation lest the subject of his…cryptivity not suffer in confusion and worry for as long as naturally possible.

“For…?” Cam questions.

“Well…I’ve just been going through more texts, found a few references to the uh…device,” he trails off yet again. Cam waits for the punch line that never comes.

“Jackson,” he sighs, thunking his head against his arms folded across the table. There’s no one to share his look of misery and frustration and he pictures Sheppard for a moment making faces behind Jackson’s back.

“He asked me…” Daniel starts, not looking up from the book, as though the words are written across its pages. “Before he left, what time the device deactivated.” Cam tenses and Daniel catches it.

“And?” Cam says, his voice steady.

“I told him.”

“What time was that?”

“I think you know, without my having to tell you,” Daniel says, staring away from him. “I think we both know he did too.”

 “Oh,” Cam says, unsure of what to say.

“But…the thing is…I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad,” Daniel looks at him then, scrutinizing.

“How should I know?” Cam says defensively. He looks away from Daniel’s gaze and focuses instead on an urn stamped with hieroglyphics seated on a shelf on the opposite side of the cluttered office.

He thinks to himself, trying not to picture Sheppard, wondering what he must have thought, catching him in his poorly constructed, thinly veiled lie. Daniel is still watching him when he turns back.

Cam gives him a shaky sort of smile and straightens.

“It’s late,” he says and claps his hands together.

“You going home tonight?” Daniel asks, and the question is simple but the way Daniel says it asks a thousand questions in a single short phrase and Cam isn’t sure what to say.

“N-no, just be back in the morning anyway.” Daniel nods. “Why?”

Daniel shrugs his shoulders but it’s anything other than nonchalant. “It’s just rare for you, that’s all.” He thinks about that for a minute and supposes it’s true. He hates his on base quarters, small and concrete, windowless, an airless feeling like he’s trapped in some dusty cellar.

His car keys are heavy in the pocket of his jacket but he doesn’t think he can go home to a quiet house with a made up guest room immaculately clean and empty.

Daniel pushes his glasses up again, which Cam concludes has little to do with eyepiece slippage and all to do with Daniel’s ability to gaze over the edge of lenses, scrutinizing and calculated.

Cam turns around and bids him goodnight.

“You know after my wife died,” Daniel’s voice cuts across the space and stops Cam in his tracks.

“After Sha’re I didn’t think it would be possible for me to be with anyone else. Losing her the way I did…the way no one could truly be capable of understanding.” Daniel pauses.

“One of the hardest parts was just…knowing I could never share that with anyone…the magnitude of that loss…or share myself so completely with anyone else.” Daniel’s voice fades and Cam stares at the nondescript concrete wall across the hall.

“But sometimes I think the opposite of that is even harder.” Cam nods noncommittally once without turning and walks away. He passes the door to Sheppard’s quarters as he makes his way to his own base dungeon. The door closes with a final clunk and he collapses in the bed, curling the pillow beneath him and falling asleep with his BDUs still on, his boots half-kicked off his feet.

 

***

If John had to pick the most surreal moment of his life, the one moment he truly pondered the idea of reality to question if everything around him was not just some kind of dream, it wouldn’t have been the first time he flew, with nothing but blue stretched out around him so far up he could see the way the Earth curved.

It wouldn’t even have been the first time he learned that wormholes weren’t just things of science fiction, or even the first time he saw a goa’uld symbiote slither its way into some guy’s cranium.

No, this right here would make it to slot number one.

“But she’s really quite attractive…I mean…for someone who spends most of their day in a dark lab. She’s no Samantha Carter by any means but…” Rodney laughs and John shoots him a withering look. Rodney clears his throat and stops talking.

“No.” John tells him definitively.

“Well why not?” Rodney whines, “I know for a fact that she likes y—”

“Perhaps this none of our business, if John does not wish to discuss his personal life, we must respect that,” Teyla says, staring pointedly at Rodney.

“But he never goes out with anyone,” Rodney complains, “and I really think you’d both be easier to work with if you both got laid.”

John’s not sure if it’s a universal gesture or too much time spent with Earthlings, but he’s fairly certain Teyla does a facepalm.

“Rodney—“ John warns, even though he thinks Rodney might be right. His own hand, while stress relieving and enjoyable, isn’t exactly the same (which he’s fairly certain Atlantis knows and has been trying to help him out with…which is just…no and also another story entirely).

“Wait,” Ronon says suddenly, dropping his hand away from the bowl of popcorn in Rodney’s lap, Terminator long forgotten on John’s laptop.

Everyone looks at him, letting Ronon work out his question, his brow wrinkled. “Aren’t you already seeing someone?”

Everyone stares.

“Ronon,” Teyla warns.

“What? No…who?” Rodney demands.

“That guy, you know the one John is always talking about. I thought you guys were like…partners…or whatever your people call them?”

“Ronon,” Teyla sighs.

“What?!” Rodney shouts.

John just stares. He knows Teyla and Ronon are aware of the rules against same sex couples, two young marines having been in a not-so-secret relationship for the year the Atlantis expedition was stranded from Earth. They had a few problems with the newbies arriving fresh off the Daedalus, but most of the Veterans just knew and were either used to it enough to ignore it, accepted it, or simply didn’t care.

But John just stares.

“So you’re not together?”

“Uhm,” is all John manages, giving Teyla a helpless look.

“But you’ve fucked right?” Ronon says. “I mean…”

“What!?” Rodney says again. “Who are we talking about?”

“That Mitchell guy. He’s a good fighter. I mean if you two are together I fully support it.”

“Mitchell! Colonel Citrus Death!” Rodney shouts.

“What…” John mumbles. “Anyone want any more popcorn!?” He shouts, grabbing the nearly full bowl and wandering away towards the half kitchen at the other end of the small quarters.

He’s staring into the sink, leaning on his hands over the counter when he hears Teyla’s light steps behind him. She places her hand on his shoulder and he turns to look.

“I must confess that Terminator does nothing to hold my interest. I was however, thinking a walk sounds good, would you care to join?”

“Yeah, yes sure,” John nods and he follows her out of his quarters, the sound of Ronon and Rodney arguing cut off as the door closes.

They walk in silence for nearly a quarter of an hour before John leads them out onto one of Atlantis’ many balconies. He leans against the rail and looks down at his sneakers and asks,

“Is it really that obvious?” He sees Teyla’s smirk out of the corner of his eye.

“It is…” Teyla starts, pausing to get her thoughts together. “Not so much how often you speak of him John, but the way you do,” she tells him. John’s confusion must be obvious because she lets out a soft laugh and pats him on the shoulder again.

“No matter who plays a key role in the events of a story John, in all of your stories, Cam somehow, miraculously is the star.” John doesn’t think it’s right for Teyla to be using theater analogy, even if it is completely accurate. Now that he thinks about it, he does talk about Cam a lot. He scowls.

“He is one of your best friends John, I would find it perplexing if you did not speak of him often.”

“But…I mean Ronon only met the guy once and we weren’t even…we hadn’t even…back then. He can really get all that from…stories?”

“Ronon is unusually perceptive when he wants to be,” Teyla comments. John gives her a look and they both laugh.

“Does Colonel Mitchell know?” Teyla asks, turning around and staring up at the two moons hanging high and bright.

“Yeah,” John says softly.

“Then he does not share your feelings?” Teyla asks. John shrugs his shoulders.

“I guess not.”

“It is one of your sayings is it not, that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder?’ Perhaps when you two meet again he’ll have come around.”

“Perhaps.”

 

***

“Why does this always seem to happen to me?” Vala sighs long suffering, leaning against the bars of her cell. “I try to live my life morally righteous,” she says.

“I do not think that means you what you think it means,” Cam drawls, and Vala looks at him in mock outrage.

“I am un upstanding and productive member of society.”

‘I think not!” Quips the little bald monk staring angrily at Vala through her bars.

“Aren’t you supposed to be with the peace and the forgiving?” Cam asks.

“She tries my patience.”

Daniel sighs, nodding his agreement.

“Come, let’s chat, I feel optimistic we can resolve this,” Daniel says, patting the monk on the back and leading him out of the dark dungeon. He shoots a glare over his shoulder.

“What’d you do this time?”

“Pfft,” Vala says, shrugging her shoulders dramatically and shaking her head. “I have absolutely no idea, I can’t even remember ever coming to this planet.”

“Right,” Cam says, clearly not buying the innocent act. Vala turns away and paces her cell.

“Although, now I think about it, I do have a sort of maybe vague memory of…oh something about maybe perhaps impersonating an enlightenment bringer to oh…I don’t know…possibly seek out valuable relics to trade for a Cargo ship.”

Cam just looks at her. Vala smiles, “possibly.”

It turns out, as Cam never would have figured it, possibly was more of a definitely. Although, as it turns out Vala’s skills in recognizing useless knock offs from the real deal weren’t as spectacular as she would have guessed, and the valuables she stole were the replicas, displayed to safe guard against such petty thieves, so all in all, the monks were easily able to talk down from public hanging, to life imprisonment, to a stern talking to and a promise never to return.

“Well I feel a little insulted,” Vala complains on the way back to the gate, “to suggest that my skills aren’t deserving of any kind of real punishment, how dare they.”

“Va—“ Daniel starts before sighing, shaking his head and quickening his pace to catch up with Teal’c, leaving Vala and Cam behind.

“You think my skills are unsurpassed by any and all, don’t you Cameron?” Vala asks, wrapping her hands around Cam’s bicep and looking up at him earnestly.

Cam looks down at her for a moment before looking away. “Don’t you think this is just a reminder of everything you’ve left behind? Don’t get me wrong, you’re a damn good thief princess but you have plenty of other marketable skills, you don’t need to use them for evil.”

“You’re calling me evil?” Vala asks, looking slightly put out.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Cam says. Vala straightens and drops her arms away from Cam.

“No, it’s alright, I haven’t exactly been a shining paradigm of goodness, obviously,” Vala says, motioning around them.

“Shit,” Cam sighs as Vala quickens her pace. “Hey,” he says, reaching out and grabbing her bicep and pulling her back.

“Vala, that is not what I meant.” She raises an eyebrow defiantly at him. “All I meant was, yeah so you’ve made some mistakes in the past. But you’ve learned from them, that much is obvious. And you are not the same person you were, you wanted to change and you did.”

Vala nods. “So you’re saying…no matter who we were in the past, no matter what we’ve done, or who we’ve hurt, it’s who we are now that matters. It is our intentions and how we’ve learned to fulfill them that are important.”

Cam stares at her, scrutinizing, because he has a sneaking suspicion he’s just been played.

“Yeah…” he agrees. She smiles at him, pats him on the arm and says

“I whole heartedly agree Cameron Mitchell!” And she bounds off toward Daniel and Teal’c.

“What the…frak?”

 

***

New Lantean weather is fairly mild; add the fact that different planets and star systems have vastly different weather from one mission to the next, the seasons and months all start to blur together for John. They keep track of Earth months and days in coordination with the SGC, but John can hardly believe it when he realizes eleven months have passed.

Eleven months. Nearly a year, John marvels, staring out over the ocean through his small office window. Which means in just a month he’ll be heading back to the SGC for two weeks of leave and various debriefings with the IOA and a series of personnel changes to be announced and John’s done a better job at being the XO of an entire base than he thinks anyone would have expected but he still has a few trepidations. Atlantis has become his home. Home doesn’t even describe it; because if this is what home feels like, John’s not sure he’s ever really had one.

He doesn’t want to lose it.

“You alright John?” John looks up to find Teyla in his office doorway, watching him with concern. John smiles reassuringly and nods.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking,” he tells her with a nod.

“Do you…wish to share your thoughts?” She asks softly, stepping over the threshold. John rubs at his forehead and shakes his head.

“No, no I’m fine, just…mission reports,” he lies. Teyla nods, the question in her eyes telling him nice try, but she doesn’t contradict him, merely steps back out the door.

“I was just on my way to my quarters for the night, you are off duty in a few minutes; would you like me to walk with you?” She asks. John checks his watch to find to his surprise that she’s right, but he shakes his head.

“No, thanks but I’m just going to finish up some stuff here first, don’t know how long I’ll be,” he tells her and she smiles softly and bids him a good night before turning and disappearing down the hall.

John waits a few moments before closing the file on his laptop and powering it down. He stands, the lights in the small room dimming to black as he walks through the door.

In his quarters John pulls off his BDUs, tangling the bottoms around his boots because he always tries to take his pants off first; Cam never ceases to make fun of him for it, especially when it ends with John crashing into a locker in the men’s locker room after a mission.

There’s a pang in his chest when he thinks of Cam’s bellowing laugh, the ghost of his touch wrapping around his bicep to steady him before he hits the bed to unlace the boots. Twenty-eight days and he’ll be walking through the Stargate to an unknown certainty about his job and frankly it scares him, but he can’t wrap his head around anything other than Cam.

The past eleven months have been…cordial; awkwardly formal. They’ve never talked about what happened, never even mentioned it, both silently agreed to just pretend like the device never happened, that it was some strange mission report from some alternate reality that just…fell across their desks. But things have been stilted and weird, they talk about all the same stuff they had before but it’s been getting harder and harder to see around the elephant in the room.

He wonders vaguely if he should have pushed Cam harder, back when things maybe could have been saved, but he wonders if he would have just pushed him away completely, and if maybe that wasn’t what he might have really wanted in the first place.

“Hey…Earth to John,” Rodney’s voice drifts into his consciousness and John’s head snaps up. He’s sitting at a table in the cafeteria with a spoon in his hand and he wonders, what the hell, and if maybe he’s time hopped or something, before the images of him waking and showering and dressing flitter into his mind and he sighs.

Everything blurs together.

“I’m fine McKay,” he says, not meaning it, not even sounding like it.

“Right, well…no you’re really not and as you’re responsible for my well-being I’d prefer it if you were in fact, fine.”

John sighs.

 

The crumpled photograph in the top drawer of his desk is torn at the edges and there’s some kind of stain on the dog-eared corner on the left hand side, he thinks it might be coffee, but he doesn’t really know. Cam isn’t even in the picture, not really, the photograph a little blurred and out of focus, the pink of the photographer’s finger in the edge of the frame. Cam is in the background, he’s nineteen or twenty, John can’t remember, but he’s smiling, candid and real.

 

John is standing on the balcony outside the gate room a week before his scheduled trip ho—to Earth, when Sam sidles up beside him, leaning over the rail and breathing in the smell of salt.

“Your team is worried about you,” she says, without looking at him.

“That right?” John asks, noncommittally.

“Mhm. Says you’re withdrawn…more than usual,” she adds with a teasing lilt to her tone. John laughs softly and looks down at his hands clasped, hanging over the rail.

“Had a lot to think about,” he says simply.

“About what?” She asks. John glances at her for a long moment before looking away. “As your friend John, and nothing else.”

“You know,” he says, not looking at her. She doesn’t say anything but he can see her nod out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s been a year,” she says. “That’s a lot of time to think.”

“Good and bad,” he reasons.

“I suppose,” Sam tells him. “You know I talk to him right?” She asks. John looks over at her with a curious nod.

“Yeah,” he says, confused.

“He’s only marginally better at feelings…sometimes,” Sam says, with a small private smirk. “But John he’s still a guy and you’re still both so…dumb.” She says simply. John looks at her,

“Should I be insulted?” He asks.

“Look John, do you know how you feel?” John just stares at her. She raises her eyebrows.

“No…yes? Maybe…I don’t know; why are you asking me this?” He says, feeling like a child under the critical stare of a teacher.

Sam sighs, “before you left, did you tell him how you felt?”

John shrugs, and then thinks, and says, “yeah.” But Sam is staring at him.

“No I guess not…not in so many words…”

“In how many words?” Sam asks.

“Well…none…but it was obvious,” he says, frustrated. Sam sighs and shakes her head.

“You two are like children sometimes. You wanted Cam to shut up and stop making excuses and when he didn’t, you got upset and walked away. But you didn’t do it either. You could have. You could have told him how you felt.”

“He knew,” John says, his voice cracking, “and I shouldn’t have had to!”

“That’s not the point,” Sam says. “You were being passive aggressive. You never asked him how he felt, did you?” She asks.

“Passive aggressive!” John snorts, and “no. Not really, I mean he was the one—“

“So you just let him go, because you could have just grabbed him by the collar and demanded he tell you how he felt,” Sam says, eyes wide. “But instead you just let him go.”

“He was the one continuously deceiving me, and I’m in the wrong for wanting him to finally tell the truth without having to push him to do it!”

“Why did you stay and keep trying even after all his bull?” Sam asks, quieter this time. John doesn’t skip a beat, he doesn’t pause or think because he’s all riled up and he just says,

“Because I love him.”

“And if he had said ‘I love you John. I don’t want you to go,’ would you have stayed?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he was doing that for you.”

“Oh fuck that, he was just too afraid to actually have feelings for someone.”

Sam laughs, “and you’re not?”

“What?”

“John you came to a galaxy a million light years away to avoid having a discussion about your feelings!”

“I told him I loved him, it just wasn’t enough.”

“Maybe it was too much.”

“Right,” John sighs.

“You can take the moral high ground all you want John, and I’m not saying you don’t deserve it because Cam is a jerk, no doubt. But…look where it’s gotten you.”

“Yeah, could say the same to you. How long have you had a thing for—“ John stops when he sees Sam’s raised eyebrows. “—chocolate?”

“Exactly,” she sighs.

 

***

“Thanks Cam,” Daniel says, patting Cam on the back at the door of his apartment.

“Cameron!” Vala grins hugging him tightly, “thank you muchly for your kind hospitality!”

“No problem Vala,” Cam laughs over her head at the exasperated look on Daniel’s face.

“See you tomorrow, Cam,” Daniel says as he pulls Vala out into the deserted hallway.

Cam waves goodbye and closes the door behind them, turning and collecting the dishes from the living room and carrying them to the kitchen.

“Teal’c,” Cam says, stopping short in the doorway, “I thought you’d left,” he says, surprised.

“I did not.” Teal’c replies and Cam laughs and nods in agreement.

“Thanks,” Cam nods to him as Teal’c starts loading the small dishwasher with the plates from their Team dinner.

“I wished to speak with you privately.”

Cam’s hand stutters to a stop on the way to a glass at the edge of the sink, staring at Teal’c the way he expects one would stare down a rattlesnake, or a crocodile.

“About…?” Cam asks, suspicious.

“Major John Sheppard.” Cam closes his eyes with a sigh.

“You too? Sure why not,” Cam says, exasperated.

Teal’c stares, undeterred.

“You are counting down the days to his arrival are you not?”

“What makes you say that?” Cam asks, a little defensive. Teal’c shoots a glance to the calendar on the fridge, red Xs crossing the days off, John’s Monday arrival circled in bright green.

Cam shrugs.

“May I offer you a piece of unsolicited advice?” Teal’c asks. Cam stares, but nods.

“Be less stupid.”

Cam snorts in equal parts amusement and disbelief. “Stupid?” He asks.

“You have found a person willing to put up with your egregious and plenty character flaws and yet you pushed him away.”

“wh—…”

“That is stupid.”

“Character flaws?”

“Of which you two were equally matched,” Teal’c says, in what Cam thinks might be his attempt at reassurance.

“Wha…” Cam balks, and sighs.

“Why?” Teal’c questions.

“Why what?”

“Why did you allow him to leave?”

Cam simply stares.

“I--“ Teal’c starts.

“Is this the part where you delve into your own personal history about how guilty you feel over your wife and how terrible you were in the past and how it can all be a big analogy for the soul rape that is life?” Cam asks, frustrated.

Teal’c looks a little murderous at the interruption and Cam steps back a pace and holds up his hands, “sorry.”

“As I was saying,” Teal’c reprimands, “I was entrusted with this,” and he pulls, from inside his jean’s pocket, a small folded envelope.

“What is it?” Cam asks, his heart skipping a beat, he sees his name written across the front in a messy scrawl.

“Is it from John?” Cam asks, before he notices the hand writing he recognized as John’s is actually his own.

“Where did you get this?” Cam asks, concerned by how shaky his voice is. He stares at the envelope, the clean white glaring back at him like a long forgotten memory, a name on the tip of his tongue.

“You gave this to me,” Teal’c explains. “On the Odyssey, just before Sam enacted her plan to reverse time, at the end of the 50 years that never happened.”

“But they did,” Cam says, “you’re proof. That,” he says pointing, “is proof.”

“Indeed.”

“Proof of what?” Cam asks, mostly to himself, staring at the envelope as though afraid.

“That all that stands between you and happiness is your own irrationality,” Teal’c says.

Cam just stares at him.

“Your words, Cameron Mitchell.” Teal’c offers Cam the envelope.

Cam barely notices Teal’c leave, the door to his apartment closing with a snap. Cam closes the dishwasher, he can’t remember if he added soap but he hits the start button anyway before moving like a zombie into the living room, collapsing into the armchair by the window, overlooking the street.

He opens the envelope messily, and pulls out the folded sheet of paper inside. He unfolds it carefully in his hands and reads.  



	10. Synthesis

John sees Cam’s silhouette in the dusk light, hunched at the top of a gently sloping hill. He climbs softly, footsteps silent as he comes to a stop behind Cam. He clears his throat, and Cam turns his head, there’s a flicker of surprise in his eyes, a momentary flit, before he turns back to look out over the water of the calm spring.

“You don’t seem too surprised to see me,” John says, moving to stand beside Cam. 

“No,” Cam says, shaking his head. “You know where I live,” he jokes. 

“Yeah,” John says, sitting down beside Cam, leaning on his hands behind him, his legs outstretched in front. “You’re going to regret that position,” John says forced casual, Cam sitting cross-legged in the grass.

“I already am,” Cam groans a bit, with a small smirk. John turns away and looks out over the trees to the dying sun, the sky ablaze in orange at the horizon, gradating to a deep blue, stars twinkling at the edges of the sky already. He got back to Earth two days ago; found out in the first five minutes that Cam took a sudden two weeks of leave. He had debated it, paced around in his on base quarters before booking the first flight out.

“Congratulations, by the way,” Cam says without looking, “on the promotion.” 

“Lieutenant Colonel,” John sighs, “if I didn’t have the paperwork I don’t think anyone would believe it…still don’t really,” John says. 

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” Cam tells him.

“Seems to be an epidemic,” John says without mirth. Cam winces beside him.

“John—“

“Wished you were there,” John tells him, all semblance of subtlety gone, left somewhere back in Pegasus, “at the ceremony.”

“I’m sorry,” Cam says, staring at his sneakers. “I wasn’t sure…I didn’t know if you wanted me there.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because I’m an asshole?” Cam asks, and it’s so sincere that John laughs. 

“You’re not an asshole,” John says, “well no…you kind of are, but I…I get it. Mostly I get it, I just…” John looks away, towards the water, glinting in the light.

“I’ve dreamt of this place,” John says suddenly, looking around. 

“Have you been here before?” Cam asks, looking at him. John shakes his head.

“No, but…I remember,” he looks up, and _yeah_ , there’s the frayed end of a rope swing hanging limply from a large tree curved over the water.

“You used to swim here in the summer, that rope swing…you’d stare up at the sky and pretend you were flying.”

“H-how’d you know that?” Cam asks, staring at him in something of alarm.

“I told you I dreamt it,” John says, looking back at him. “Except I was there, with you, you were…” John shakes his head.

“You used to think the same thing when you went surfing,” Cam says and John turns to him and nods.

“Do you think it was that device?” John asks, looking back down at the grass and plucking a blade. 

“God I hope so,” Cam laughs and John smirks.

They sit in silence, while the sun slips below the horizon and the edges of blue to black creep over the curve of the Earth, until the stars are twinkling so bright that John wonders if they’ve left orbit.

“You scare me more than anything I’ve ever faced John,” Cam says suddenly, and John’s eyes widen in surprise and he turns his head to Cam, whose face is shrouded in darkness.

“What?” He asks, unsure of how to respond. 

“We were together on the Odyssey,” Cam says simply, like that explains everything, but it only confuses John more.

“Did Teal’c tell you that?” John asks.

“No, not really,” Cam says. “He…he gave me this letter, that the other me gave him to give to me…”

“You wrote yourself a letter?” John asks, “isn’t that like cheating?” 

“We were together for thirty years John.” John falls silent, unsure of what to say because, _wow_.

“What kind of together?” John asks, “I mean…” he says, unsure of how to phrase it, “sex?”

“No. I mean,” he pulls something out of his pocket and places it on John’s knee. John picks it up, rolls it between his fingers, the gold catching in the light of the rising moon. 

“This is…this is like…” John tries, staring at the ring in his palm. 

“It was in the envelope,” Cam says. “I don’t know what to think John. I mean I wrote it to myself, I know it was supposed to a big ‘see how happy you can be, you will be’ but I can’t help thinking it’s just a big ‘fuck you’ to myself and this impossibly huge expectation that I can’t…are we the same? Us and them? They were happy John…” Cam looks stricken, and John’s hand stutters up to brush against Cam’s cheek, cupping his face in his hand and Cam closes his eyes and lets him. 

“They were on an abandoned ship, they had no idea if they were getting home and they were with people that didn’t _care,_ but John we aren’t…we’re not…” Cam says, his voice shaky. John lets hand drop away and he stares at the grass stains on his sneakers. 

“I dated this guy in high school,” he starts, not looking at Cam, his voice soft and steady. “His name was Todd…just don’t tell anyone that because there was this wraith…” Cam looks up at him, confused, and John shakes his head with a laugh, “never mind.” 

Cam still looks confused and John looks back up at him. 

“So Todd, he was…he was a brilliant pianist, I mean like…really amazing. He got accepted to Julliard and that’s all he ever wanted and he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from getting there. But his parents were conservative Christians, he was brought up with the fear of God, blah blah whatever.”

“Is this story real?” Cam asks, skeptical. “Because I’m really done with analogies.”

“Just shut up Mitchell,” John sighs, flushing, because he thought about this on the plane ride down and it feels important, even if it feels a little stupid saying it all out loud. 

“I used to make fun of him, to myself. He was just…so afraid of his parents finding out he was gay. There was this one time, his parents were out, and we were fucking in his room, and he heard a noise and he got so freaked out he panicked and jumped half naked into his closet, leaving me on the bed stark fucking naked with a raging hard on,”

“raging hard on?” Cam teases.

“And it turns out it was just his damn dog walking down the hallway. I mean I wasn’t in love with the guy or anything, we only dated until school ended, then he went off to Julliard. I was never afraid like that, I mean, I brought guys back to my house in high school hoping to get caught. Dave always knew but he never said anything, but my dad was never around enough to figure it out, and all the help tried to protect me by covering up for us. But I just…I _wanted_ my dad to know, because he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. He was always so fucking concerned with appearances he couldn’t have kicked me out, how shit would that have looked for him. And I just…I wanted… I don’t know what I wanted.”

“Wanted that big fuck you?” Cam says and John nods and continues.

“Cos it was like…there was never anything for me, I always saw myself on this path. This one, narrow, straight path with barbed wire fences and brick fortified walls on either side and there was no leeway, no chance to escape, I was doing what my dad wanted.”

“Then the Air Force came along, and it was like…metaphorical C4 blasting apart this shit box of my life and I finally had something I actually cared about and…and I turned into Todd.”

“ _You_ ,” Cam says, in disbelief. 

“I did though…I mean I hated Todd for pretending to be this person to please others and I did it.” Cam scoffs again.

“I liked you Cameron,” John tells him. “Back at the Academy, wanted to be with you.”

“Yeah,” Cam says, “me too.” John looks up at him and laughs.

“Wrong place wrong time.”

“Only good place seems to be a paradoxically doomed 304.” 

“I gave up part of myself to be in the Air Force. And I mean…I’m okay with that. Because it’s what I wanted, still do, I mean I’ve never been in love with anything more than I was with flying.” John pauses.

“Was?” Cam asks. 

“What?” John questions.

“You’ve never been more in love with anything than you _were_ with flying?” 

“Oh, no I just meant…I mean…”

“John?”

“I…I think I’d give it up, I mean…”

“Say it,” Cam says, staring at him.

“Why?” John asks, his eyes narrowing and he shakes his head, his body tensed. “Why do I have to, because I said it before and you just fucking threw it away Cam,” he catches Cam’s gaze and stares him down, “and please don’t make me do it again if all it’s going to get me is _nothing_ ,”

“I am so good at excuses John, and I had a thousand of them ready for you, and you know that. And truthfully…I don’t know what to say to you, or how I even feel. But being with you scares me.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know how to be what you want.”

“I want _you_ ,” John says, “You don’t know how to be _you_?” He asks in disbelief.

“I don’t know how to be me with other people. I’m a _bad_ boyfriend John. This letter pretty much says the same thing, it took them…us…twenty years to get through the bull shit.”

“Cam you’re one of the most decent people I’ve ever met…” John starts and Cam shakes his head.

“No, I’m really not. I hurt people, everyone I’ve ever been with. And you know what the worst part is?”

John shakes his head.

“They _forgive_ me, they’re all…understanding and compassionate and tell me they get it, and it’s not my fault and it’s fucked up. I know I’m going to screw you over John, it’s what I _do_ and I don’t deserve you.”

“Cam—“

“I hate being this way. But it’s the same over and over again. I know how to date, I’m a-a-a damn pro dater,” Cam says and John ducks his head to hide the smirk because Cam just sounds so…ridiculous. “shut up John, I’m trying to have a moment here.”

“M’sorry,” he says, not really meaning it. “You’re a pro dater?” 

“Fuck you,” he says, without really meaning it. “God. All they see is this…charming southern boy who likes to dote, and I do, I like to dote, John, I’m _great_ at spoiling the girls I go out with, with flowers and movies, and fancy dinners and holding the door open without being a chauvinist about it, because I’ve been beaten up by way too many women to be all misogynistic about girls, and you know what I’m talking about. But me…I’m shit at relationships.”

“Cam, I’m a 37 year old divorcee who’s not entirely certain about his sexual orientation.” 

“We should do the world a favor and get gay married, we shouldn’t unleash this level of fucked up on an unsuspecting population.”

“Yeah,” John sighs, falling back and sprawling out on the grass.

“Teal’c pretty much told me that,” Cam says, sprawling out beside him.

“Seriously?”

“Does that surprise you?”

“Truth.”

“I suck at relationships John. I’m closed off and unresponsive when I get depressed. I make a million excuses for why I can’t talk about things, and usually it’s ‘sorry, darlin’ classified’ but you…I can’t make those excuses anymore and maybe that scares me. Because you… _get_ it.”

“I get it, get you, sort of negates the need for verbal communication don’t you think?” John asks with a small smirk.

“Hmm. Girls are all about talking through their issues, I suppose fucking it out has its merits.”

“Damn straight.”

“Umm…I think you’re doing it wrong,” Cam says. John closes his eyes and huffs out a laugh. They fall into a comfortable silence, with nothing but the sound of crickets chirping around them and fireflies blinking above them like shooting stars. Cam’s hand nudges John’s, until John wraps a pinky around Cam’s feeling kind of ridiculous about it, but it’s dark so it feels like a secret that’s maybe okay. 

“Hey Cam,” John says softly. 

“Yeah?”

“I think…” John starts, pausing dramatically. “I want to go skinny dipping.”

“I lo—wait,” Cam says, catching up. John rolls to the side and springs up, tearing his t-shirt off on the way up. John catches Cam pulling himself into a sitting position as his head disappears into the thin cotton. Cam is watching John with interest as he unbuckles his belt, releases the button, and unzips his jeans, pushing them down with his boxers and any modesty he might have had left. 

His bottoms wrap around his sneakers and he stumbles to the side and falls back towards the edge of the hill and the water below, Cam rushes forward to catch him, wrapping him up from behind with an arm around his chest and hand a gripping John’s elbow. 

“You’re an idiot,” Cam laughs, trying to hold him up, as John kicks off his shoes. Cam backs up, his feet sliding in the grass behind him, and he slips.

“Ohfu—“he manages before his feet are out from underneath him and he lands hard on his tailbone, John slipping from his grasp to thunk hard on the ground, his head in Cam’s lap. 

“Oh my God, I hate you,” Cam groans. John laughs and tilts his head up to look at him, Cam sloping over the hill John sees his ribcage outlined beneath his t-shirt and nothing else. 

“Liar. You love me,” John teases, and he can feel Cam’s sigh beneath him.

“Yeah, yeah I kinda do.” John slithers onto his stomach and Cam picks his head up to grin down at him.

“So how about that—“

“Cameron? John?” The sound of Wendy’s concerned voice cuts across the night, the light from a flashlight landing a few feet from them. 

John’s eyes widen in horror and he launches himself forward onto all fours, attempting to pull his jeans up from around his ankles. Cam doesn’t look too concerned, just starts laughing at him, his chest heaving. John shoves him down in irritation and dives over the slope of the hill, rolling into the water with a loud splash.

“Cameron? Are you alright! What was that?” 

“We’re fine mom, it was nothing,” Cam laughs.

“Where’s the Major? What was that?”

“Nothing, we’ll be up at the house in a minute.” John watches from the water as the light turns in the opposite direction and fades. 

“Sheppard?” Cam asks, and John stands up, Cam bursts out laughing immediately, doubling over and clutching at his side. “I just wish,” he heaves, trying to catch his breath, “that Tea—“ more hysterics, and John climbs out of the water, annoyed. 

“—that Teal’c,” and he shakes his head and can’t go on. John pulls his pants off and rings them out over Cam’s head on his way up the hill, Cam slapping his ass as he goes. 

“I’ll give you an 8.5 for ingenuity, a 10 for the view, but only a 4 for form.”

“Bite me Mitchell.”

“With pleasure Sheppard,” and he leers. 

***

  


Epilogue

They’re in a meeting when they discover it, playing footsy beneath the conference table, which is difficult to do, actually, while wearing standard issue combat boots.

But they’re pretty talented.

John isn’t paying attention to Landry, which is pretty par for the course, in Cam’s defense at least, he is mostly attempting to look like he is.

Which is hard, what with John’s ankle wrapped around his own and thoughts of disused storage closets in his head, but it’s really only when other things grow hard that it really takes a turn for the interesting.

His dick is heavy in his BDUs, persistent throbbing that has him shifting uncomfortably, and he avoids, avoids, avoids Sam’s curious look because he knows she can tell what’s wrong, sees her eyes dart quickly beneath the table to where John’s foot is pressed against his own on the opposite side. She reprimands him without saying a word and turns back to Landry, her eyes a little wider than they should be. 

Cam flushes and catches John’s heavy lidded gaze, which, Cam thinks should be a dead give away to what’s happening, but John looks like the center fold for a dirty magazine about 98% of the time, so mostly he think no one will notice.

John is all but leering and he feels a sharp jab to his calf that isn’t Cam’s and glances over to Rodney who is looking at him horrified. 

So subtlety was never a strength. Landry continues to notice nothing though, perusing the folders in front of him and going over…mission reports? John’s not sure, because he can see Cam’s neck is turning red. His wrist tingles suddenly and he slides his wrist cuff off and looks down at the tattoo, it seems…lighter, than normal. It hasn’t changed color since the device deactivated, and John’s almost forgotten all about it. 

He presses a finger to it lightly, rubbing softly to alleviate the tingle, but it just makes it worse and it grows warm beneath his thumb, and he rubs a little harder and Cam sits up straight in his chair and makes a noise. 

John drops his hand away, startled.

“Problem Colonel?” Landry asks. 

“No sir, just…approving,” he lies, poorly. Landry stares at him for a few seconds and decides not to ask before continuing. Cam looks over at him, his eyes wide. John gives a little shrug.

Cam’s wrist is warm where the thin lines of ink are etched into his skin, and he looks down at the tattoo and presses his thumb to it, rubbing over it slightly, interested. Across the table John squirms in his seat before slouching further down.

Cam rubs a little more deliberately, his head cocked to the side and notices John’s eyes slip closed slightly before opening with a snap.

John stares at Cam over the top of the table, and they drop their arms in their laps and furiously rub at their wrists. 

Cam’s legs drop open of his own accord, and Sheppard’s face grows increasingly flushed. Sam is staring at them with a mix of fear and curiosity. Vala is looking back and forth between them, peering over the edge of the table to watch, checking her pockets for the cell phone she left in her locker, Lorne obliges by handing over his own, Daniel is staring pointedly at Landry, using all of his concentration to ignore the two. Rodney looks a little pale, staring around at everyone in complete and utter disbelief. And Teal’c…well Teal’c pretty much looks like Teal’c.

John’s poised on the edge, rubbing over his wrist with one hand and trying desperately not to shove his other down the front of his BDUs, which he thinks might be a little too lacking in subtlety. John gives one last swipe before Cam kicks him beneath the table, his leg twitching slightly and John follows, nearly biting through his lip in an attempt not to draw unwanted attention to himself.

“Ah,” Cam lets out in discomfort, twitching in his seat and kicking John to get him to stop rubbing at his wrist.

“Hmm,” John notes.

They stare at each other for a pause, in sated bliss before catching everyone’s gaze. They shoot a cautious glance to Landry who is looking at them all. 

“So Colonel Carter is staying on Atlantis to continue her work as a scientist, Mitchell is the new expedition leader, Sheppard, the new military commander, and Lorne is staying on Earth as the new leader of SG-1. Any questions?” He asks. “Good. Dismissed.” 

Landry watches them all go, Mitchell and Sheppard walking a little uncomfortably, Vala happily bouncing between the two. McKay and Jackson practically running, Sam and Lorne sniggering behind them with Teal’c heading up the rear.

“God help us all,” Landry sighs, burying a face in a palm. 


End file.
